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Books by 
CHARLES RANN KENNEDY 

The Idol-Breakeb. Portrait net $1.25 

The Servant in the House. Ill'd 1.25 

The Winterfeast. Ill'd 1.25 

The Terrible Meek. Frontispiece 7iet 1.00 

The Necessary Evil net 1.00 

HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK 




/ /fAi* <V- lo^'ulf^, our of $*.y Oufu lii^ 



THE 
IDOL-BREAKER 

A PLAY OF THE PRESENT DAY IN FIVE ACTS 
SCENE INDIVIDABLE, SETTING FORTH THE STORY 
OF A MORNING IN THE RIPENING SUMMER 

BY 

CHARLES RANN KENNEDY 



Behold, I ha-ve created the S7nith that 
bloiveth the fire of coals, and bringcth 
yorth a lueapoit for his -work : and I 
have created the -waster to destroy 
—Isaiah liv 16 




HARPER b- BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 

MCMXIV 



ALL STAGE, RECITATION, PUBLICATION, TRANSLATION 
AND OTHER RIGHTS RESERVED. APPLICATION 
SHOULD BE MADE TO MESSRS. HARPER & BROTHERS 






COPYRIGHT, 1914. BY CHARLES RANN KENNEDY 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
PUBLISHED JANUARY. 1914 

M-N 



0/^i^ir 



FEB -9 1914 



©CI,A362497 



TO 

THE PEOPLE OF THE 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

IN WHOSE GREAT COMPANY I GAINED MY FREEDOM 

Naomi. Ay, youm drunk or mad or got a devil, if you dare to 
shew them what's inside you. All the same, sometimes, 
when the blood roars in the heart . . . 

Adam. That's it! Then you get up and begin to tell them things! 

The Author 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



PERSONS OF THE PLAY 

Adam A blacksmith 

Naomi A woman of the highroad 

Ellen A woman of Little Boswell 

Nathaniel Dank A lawyer 

Samuel Snark A man of letters 

Jeremiah Jones An ironmonger 

Jake A wastrel 

THE PLACE 

Interior of the Smithy of Little Boswell 

THE TIME 

Between the Hours of Four and Half Past Six 
on a Morning in Ripening Summer. Today 



THE SCENE 

The Tired Business Man is politely requested for 
the purpose of this description, to consider himself 
a Little Boswellite. He is seated comfortably in the 
market-square he loves so well, contemplating 
reahty at last through a large open Imaginary Win- 
dow; and waiting to be amused. Around him is a 
jumble of ho'ases, hucksteries, brothels, a well-built 
prison, pigsties, libraries, beer-shops, and a place 
of worship. It is where he lives: his pride: to 
apply the touching panegyric of the poet, it is his 
own, his native Little Boswell. Behind him, dotted 
with disused lead mines and other marks of ancient 
toil, rises a lofty hill: the crest of which, formerly a 
Roman Camp — long since gone to dust — now flut- 
ters a beautiful new flag. From time to time, the 
Clock overhead, belonging to the big Sunday School, 
vouchsafes — untruthfully — the hour. Above that, 
dawns God's day. 

2 l9l 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



The strain upon his imagination now relaxed, the 
Weary One will next please look in front of him, 
digest his victuals, and be amused. 

It is the interior of the smithy of Little 
BoswELL. A place prodigious with many labours: 
the womb of things about to be born. The Building 
is of rough-hewn stones and huge oak timbers. 

The BACK WALL presents three interests. Glanc- 
ing from left to right, these are : the Long Window, 
the Big Door, and the Forge. The Long Window is 
low, silled and mullioned. The Big Door is Dutch, 
deeply embrasured, and before daybreak the Porch 
beyond it caverns it with shadows. The Forge, 
gaunt, grimy, cowled, has a base of boulders clamped 
with iron: its chimney clambering crookedly through 
augmenting glooms into the roof. The Handle of 
the Bellows in the corner juts out like a jib-boom. 

Through the openings may be seen the Highroad, 
bounded over the way by a low Cobble Wall: above 
that, a rise of Green Field; and beyond, a wild of 
Purple Moors stretching away into the skies. 

In the further end of the left wall is another 
door, heavily chained and padlocked. Its approach 
[lol 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



is cluttered with green and rusty dumps of smelted 
metal. This is the Door of the Inner Workshop. 

In the nearer end of the right wall is another 
window, smaller than the first, though of good size. 
It is open, hollyhocks and geraniums jostUng through 
it from outside. Let this be called the Open Window, 
to distinguish it from the Long Window at the back, 
and the Imaginary Window in front. 

The Anvil occupies the middle of the floor. The 
fierce blue steel gleams in the dawn like anger. 
Upright beside it, stands the Sledge Hammer — a 
warrior, waiting. 

There are no conveniences for sitting down; but 
left of the anvil is a Yellow Box, overturned, labelled 
Empire Mustard. Further on, a Wheelbarrow, laden 
at one end with Bricks. A Carpenter's Horse by 
the open window might serve a straddle. Above 
the mustard-box, a Nail-keg with protruding spikes 
invites the unwary; and a Ploughshare offers hos- 
pitably from the debris below the long low window. 

A Butcher's Knife lies on the Grindstone by the 
bellows. A Leathern Apron hangs by the big door. 
[II] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Beneath the open window is a Work-bench, covered 
with Tools and Diagrams. Nearby, a Scarlet Poster 
proclaims some socialist meeting. Karl Marx in 
lithograph decorates the inner workshop door. 

The Floor, rugged with lavas, is a record of erup- 
tive throes. Ochres, indigo, emerald, here and there 
bright splashes of crimson. Along the walls, on the 
shelves, high up in the rafters, demonic shapes and 
twistings in steel, in lead, in iron. Things formed 
and half formed: things in their first imagining: 
things scrapped and cast aside. Inextricable min- 
glings. Nor metal only. There are bricks, cement, 
a drain-pipe, implements for digging, quarrying. 
Tools for carpentry. Paint-pots, flower-pots. Cart- 
wheels and the yoking gear of cattle. Books, even. 
Books! And a gigantic Hammer swung by chains 
above the yawning doorway. 

Clearly, the litter of some portentous labour: the 
womb of some impregnate monster, now ripe and big 
with child. 

THE LIGHTING 

The First Act commences in utter darkness, pass- 
ing through grey to white dawn. The Second Act 

[12] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



is a white dawn, ending in sunrise. The Third Act 
is clear but clouded day. The Fourth Act, a thun- 
der-flame of blood and burning bronze. The Fifth 
Act, golden sunlight. 

The events taking place between four in the morn- 
ing and six-thirty, half an hour is supposed to elapse 
during each act; as the clock indicates. 

The Sunlight comes by way of the Open Window: 
as also, the Imaginary Window of our Jaded Brother. 



THE COSTUMES 

Naomi glows one hue from head to foot; and wears 
ear-rings like a gipsy. Adam, in russet-browns and 
tans: gaitered, aproned. Jake is like a lizard, in 
dusty green, corduroyed, gaitered, with a mole-skin 
cap and waistcoat, and a red rag for neckerchief. 
He wears ear-rings. 

The others dress in modes appropriate to their 
rank in Little Boswell. Ellen is in gingham, cover- 
ing her head with a shawl. Nathaniel Dank goes 
gingerly in pepper and salt. Samuel Snark sports 
[13] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



check. Jeremiah Jones, being an imitative soul, 
affects the ministerial; but will probably don a 
leathern apron hereafter. 



THE SUNDAY SCHOOL CLOCK 

The Bells representing this clock are built in the 
ceiling of the auditorium, and are worked from below 
by electricity. There are three notes only, two for 
the quarters and one for the hour, all dismally out 
of tune. 



The Music informing this play is Beethoven, 
pianoforte sonata. Opus ill. 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



THE FIRST ACT 

The Curtain rises upon darkness as the big Sunday 
School dock overhead drones Jour. This is followed hy a 
long silence. Out of it then comes the shrill high cry 
of a cock crowing. It sounds like a triumphant jeer. 
A glimmering dawn creeps in, quickening imperceptibly. 
The smithy appears as in a vapour. 

A man passes the long window. For a moment, his 
great hulk blots out the dawn. There is heard a fum- 
bling at the door, and the man comes lumbering in. Hat- 
less, coatless. It is Adam. 



Plucking the leathern apron from its peg, he drags 

it on. Rolls up his sleeves. Shuts to and bolts the 

lower half of the door. Then tries the bellows of the 

forge: the banked embers give back a sullen glow. He 

[IS] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



moves to the anvil and paws gloomily the sledge ham- 
mer. Lifts it, deep in thought. Then brings it clam- 
ouring down upon the anvil. It is like a shout in 



Adam. God! I'd like to break something. 

A woman stands in the deep shadows 
of the big doorway, watching him. 
Her face is dimly visible. It is 
Naomi. 

Adam kicks the sledge aside, sits on 
the anvil and lights his pipe. 

It's the place, that's what it is. Places 
like this breed slaves. That's why we 
blather so much about our freedom. 

Naomi. Talking to yourself? I thought it was on'y 
play-folk as did a thing like that. 

He turns, startled at the voice. 

What's the matter with you, master.? 
Got some maggot in your head? 
[i6] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Adam. Where the plague did you drop from? 

Naomi. Me ? Oh, from out of the clouds. 

Adam. I think you did. I never set eyes on you 
before. 

Naomi. Didn't you? I set eyes on you though. 

Adam. I don't remember. When? 

Naomi. Last night. Up on the moor yonder. 

We were kind of bedfellows, you and me, 
last night: on'y you didn't know it. 

He takes this in before speaking; 

Adam. Last night! Why, last night, I was . . . 

Naomi. Yes, I seen you. I was on the other side of 
the hedge. 

Adam. What were you doing, out after mid- 
night ? 

Naomi. Watching you. 

[17] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Adam. I heard something, too. I took it for some 
wild thing stirring in the dark. 

Naomi. It was me, watching. 

Adam {uneasily). How do you mean — watching? 

Naomi. Don't you know as all wild things watch 
men? They been at it a long time — since 
the beginning of the world. I tell you, they 
get to learn a lot about men, afore they done. 

Adam. Other side of the hedge, eh? Why didn't 
you speak? 

Naomi. I did. All night long. 

Adam. I never heard a word. 

Naomi. There wasn't a word. 

Her eyes shine out from the shadows. 

Adam. If you want to know anything, I wasn't 
properly myself, last night. I was drunk, 
that's what I was. Yes, I was: dead drunk! 
[i8l 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Naomi. Well, I known that kind too, in my life. 

Adam. It's the only way to be free. 

Naomi. Ay, a many of them said so, one time and 
another, the way I come. 

Adam. What way might that be.? 

Naomi. I come a goodish way to get here. I don't 
know as I could find it again myself! . . . 
Not even if I wanted. It would take a 
bloodhound to follow me, the way I 
come. 

Adam. Humph! Expecting one? 

Naomi. Not this journey. 

He is drawn a little nearer to her. 

Adam. You're a gipsy woman. 

Naomi. Am I ? 

Adam. Yes, I've seen your sort before. There's 
[i9l 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



lots on 'em tramp up and down this way on 
the highroad. 

Naomi. My sort, were they? What's — your sort? 
... Or are bastards a kind of no sort, Hke 
me? 

He is taken aback for a moment. 

Adam. Well, and if I am one! You had nothing to 
do with my birth. 

Naomi. You don't know that. The stars have 
something to say about that, maybe. 

Adam. One of them fortune tellers, eh ? . . . 

Funny, you should mention stars, too. I 
was thinking of stars all night long. Them 
and the morning dew between them so- 
bered me up. 

Here ! How did you tell I were a bastard ? 

Naomi. I seen it, like it were wrote. 

Adam. Where did you learn to see a thing like that ? 

Naomi. On the other side of the hedge. 
[20] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



He is drawn nearer still. 

Adam. There's one thing plain to me. Your sort 
never come out of Little Boswell. 

Naomi. Maybe I missed something. What is it? 

Adam. Look around you, far as you can see. 
That's Little Boswell! All them dummy- 
heads sleeping out there — man, woman and 
child. They're Little Boswell! My God, 
you'd know it right enough, if you belonged. 

Naomi. But you don't belong. Bastards don't be- 
long. Don't that seem to lift you up a bit? 

Adam. Ay sometimes, inside of me, here. But 
Lord bless you, they don't understand 
pride. 

Come inside, woman. I'll tell you some- 
thing. 

He makes to undo the holt. She is 
watching him steadily. 

Naomi. Do you want me? 

[2ll 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Adam. Why yes, didn't you hear me ask you to . . . 

And their eyes meet. 

Yes, I want you. 

The door is open. She moves softly 
to the anvil and sits. Her garments 
flush through the grey dawn like 
flame. 

Adam seats himself on the mustard-box. 
Naomi. Now, master. What's your misery? 
Adam. I'll tell you. Look through yon window. 

He means the imaginary one in front. 

See them little brown heaps, up and down 
the hillside? Them's lead mines. Been 
worked ever since the Romans were here. 
It was Romans first set Little Boswell going; 
and they begun by riddling yon hill with 
mines. 

Maybe, you think lead mines mean noth- 

[22l 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



ing but holes in the earth with lumps of 
lead at the bottom of them. They mean 
more than that. Something alive. Crawl- 
ing on the belly in the dark, like blind- 
worms. When the Romans were here, 
they meant — Slaves! Hundreds of years 
ago, that was; but the blood of them slaves 
has been running down into these valleys 
ever since. Some of it's bubbling up inside 
me now. 

Slave's blood! — That's my misery. We 
can't get clean of it. Oh, you wouldn't 
think it, not to hear us talk. You'd think 
we were God's own people in the Promised 
Land. See that thing flapping up yonder 
on the hilltop? That's our flag. Want to 
know what that stands for? — Freedom! 

It is not visible; biit it is a little like 
every flag on earth. 

Naomi. Ay, it looks fine, blowing there on the wind. 

Adam. Ay — on the wind! 

That's where I'm diff'erent to them. 
Dead words don't mean nothing to me. 
[23] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



It's the bastard in me, I suppose. That 
and the work I got to do. 

Naomi. Ay, what work is that, master? 

Adam. I'm like God. I make things. 

She searches him calmly like a child. 

Naomi. I felt there was something about you, 
moment I set eyes on you. 

Adam. Don't you see, woman? I'm a blacksmith. 

Naomi. Ay, you talk like a blacksmith. 

Adam. I talk the sort I am. There's more sorts of 
blacksmith in the world, than them as 
tinkers with bits of iron. There's the sort 
as blows fire out of their own souls. I'm 
one of them. Before ironmongers were, I 
was: I make living children. Why woman, 
I tell you — you won't believe me; but I've 
made ploughs in my time! 

There is a light in his eye. 
[24] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Naomi. What, them great hungry dragons as gnaw 
deep into the flesh of the earth? 



There is a light in hers. 

Adam. Yes, the worms and the moles as burrow 
under the sod, they know something about 
me. Listen! I'll tell you something as '11 
open your eyes ! . . . 

An apocalyptic ecstasy uplifts him; 

I make tools! Tools for the lead mines, 
tools for the quarries yonder, drilling tools, 
tools for boring. They can't dig their gar- 
dens without me. They come to me for 
their water pipes. I've built windmills! 
Why, I'm all over the place, and they pass 
by and don't notice it. 

Naomi. Go on, master. I Hke to watch iron forg- 
ing. 

Adam. It's inspiration, that's what it is. Like 
thoughts coming alive. Only they don't 
believe in inspiration nowadays. 
3 [25] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Naomi. Ay, you'm drunk or mad or got a devil, if 
you dare to shew them what's inside you. 
All the same, sometimes, when the blood 
roars in the heart . . . 

Adam. That's it! Then you get up and begin 
to tell them things. Like I done them 
dummyheads, six year ago. Like I done 
many times. Like I done — only last 
night. 

She glances across, interrogatively. 

Ay, down in the big Sunday School, that 
was. Before you and me . . . 

His hand passes vaguely over his brow. 

. . . Up on the moor yonder. 

Naomi. Sunday School, eh.'' 

Adam. It's the only place of any size, they've got. 
Properly speaking, that's what Little Bos- 
well is. Just a big Sunday School of candy- 
puking kids. 

1261 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 

Naomi. I shouldn't a-took you for Sunday School, 
exactly. Not last night. 

Adam. Me! . . . They'd soon let you know what I 
am! After last night! I'm the blasphem- 
ous swine as don't believe in nothing! That's 
why God sometimes puts it inside me, to get 
up and tell them as do, as they don't. 

Maybe, though, you didn't hear nothing 
of our little love-feast, down yonder? 

Naomi. I did hear something. Kind of a bellow- 
ing, wasn't it? 

Adam. That was me, making myself popular. 

You never saw such a picnic. Flags and 
high-cockalorums all over the Sunday 
School. Oh, it was religious, right enough. 
Plenty of scripture mottoes! And drums 
and hymns and prayers and ginger-pop, all 
going off together. 

Naomi. Why, what was doing, down there? 

Adam. Grand High Jubilee of the Constituted Sons 
of Freedom! 

[271 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



It's the biggest bean-feast Little Boswell 
ever dreamed of. God Almighty might 
come down from heaven and start the Day 
of Judgment, and they wouldn't notice it, 
alongside their jubilee. They've been hul- 
labalooing over it since the Tower of Babel. 
So I thought it was about time I come, and 
put a simple question to them: just one 
question. I asked: Where did bastards 
come in.? Took me exactly forty-five min- 
utes by their groggy old clock. 

Naomi. How did they answer you? 

Adam. Like Sons of Freedom. They chucked me 
out. 

Naomi. How did you get even with them, after 
that.? 



Adam. Hollared a few bad words through the 
vestry window; and went and liquored my- 
self up to the neck. To spite them. 

That's how you come to find me on the 
moor. 

The memory of it holds them a moment. 
[28] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Naomi. It was a hard bed up yonder in the bracken. 

Adam. I got no sleep out of it. I lay thinking. 
Something sort of — come to me, last night. 

Naomi. It was a clear night. There wasn't a cloud 
in the sky. 

Adam {rapt). Like so many eyes looking into me, 
that's what they were! . . . 

There's one thing I can't make out. 
What brought you up yonder? — watching, 
as you call it. 

Naomi. The stars. And you wanted me. 

The Sunday School clock drones the 
quarter, as he turns towards her. 

Adam. I — wanted — you.? Why, until this morn- 
ing, I never so much as dreamed such a 
woman as you . . , 

Naomi. There's a lot of dreaming goes on inside the 
heart, as you never know on, till the hour 
strikes. 

[29] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Adam. But I don't know anything about you. 
Don't even know your name, where you 
come from, what you are . . . What are 
you.'' 

Naomi. Do you want to know? I am a queen. 

You wouldn't think it, not to look at 
me, would you? 

lie looks at her long and earnestly. 
Then suddenly, drawmg closer; 

Adam. Yes, I would! . . . 

But he draws back before her eyes. 

I always heard as they had kings and 
such-like over them. 

Naomi. Who? 

Adam. The gipsy folk. 

She smiles inscrutably. 

How did you come by it? 
[30I 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Naomi. By blood, from my folk. We been a great 
people in our day: Egyptian, Chinee, 
Phcjenician. 

Adam. Phoenician! That's rum, too. My moth- 
er's kin come from Phoenicians. That was 
the name of them dead men out yonder. 
Them lead miners. 

Naomi. Maybe. We went one way and another, 
all over the world. 

Adam. Slaves, they were. Gutted out yon hill for 
the Romans. 

Naomi. Ours were kings. Builded cities — for their 
own treasure. 

Adam. Cities! I never heard as your sort hailed 
from cities. 

Naomi. We don't no longer. We belong nowhere. 
We just wander about from place to place 
like blown dust. 

All the same, we had one of our own, 
once. 

[31] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Adam. What kind might that be? 

Naomi. The kind men builded, when they first 
begun to dream them. To store wealth in. 
That was long ago. 

It had walls of marble, our city, and seven 
big gates of gold. Shining! Up on a hill, 
it was. So it might be seen. It wasn't 
ashamed of itself. There was nothing to 
hide in our city. 

The men-folk, they were kings, and knew 
it: they made things with their own hands. 
The women, they were queens: they 
brought forth living children. And there 
was bread enough for all to eat. They say, 
gods come by way of our blood: gods with 
flesh to them, as walked on the earth, Hke 
men. 

Then bad luck begun inside us, and we 
died. That's why we wandered. We been 
wandering ever since. 

Adam. How did you come to die? 

Naomi. We made a mistake — a mistake about a 
word. 

[32] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Adam. What was it? 

Naomi. Freedom. 

Adam. What do you mean by freedom? 

Naomi. Don't ask me. My meaning changes with 
the stars. 

Adam. What do you mean now? Today? 

Naomi. What you mean. 

Adam. What do I mean.f* 

Naomi. Something wild Hke me. 

Adam. You! Are you — free? 

Naomi. Like the wind. 

Adam. Why, woman, you are what I've been look- 
ing for, all my life. 

They have both risen. They stand 
facing each other. 
[33] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Naomi. Well, I'm here. What are you going to do 
with me? 

Adam. What are you going to do with me? 

Naomi. I don't know. That's one of the things I 
can't see. Perhaps destroy you. 

Adam. Woman ! 

Naomi. Don't you come near me. There's danger 
in me, if you don't take me the right way. 
Queens can't be played with, same as com- 
mon folk. Not my sort. 

Adam. Well, I'm ready. I'm not afraid. 

Naomi. You don't understand. This isn't talk- 
ing. 

Adam. There's one thing I understand. It begun 
the moment you set foot inside this forge. 
Ay, and before that! — Last night, out yon- 
der, under the stars. We belong, you and 
me! I see it plain, like dawn coming up 
out of the night: we belong! 
[34] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Naomi. Take care! You'm not the first man I heard 
say a word Hke that. 

Adam. Well, I'm the last; and I'll stand by it. 

Naomi. Keep off! . . . 

Adam. Why, what would happen? . . . 

He stands hesitating before her. 

Naomi. There's something at the back of me you 
know nothing about. Oh, it's dead, it's 
done for, sure enough; and yet , . . 

There's nothing living as can follow you 
so close as that! 

Adam. Name it for me. And I'll grapple with it. 

Naomi. I can't quite spell it out. There's fangs 
to it. And a baying along the twisted ways 
of the moors ! . . . 

He shakes himself free of her eyes. 

Adam. What's dead and done for don't move me. 
[3Sl 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



No, nor anything to come, neither. It's 
now! That's all I care about. 

Naomi. Ay, that's what they all said. 

Adam. There's none of Little Boswell about you. 
No slave's blood! You are not all tied up 
and strangled like a trapped wolf. 

Naomi. That's true. No ties, no bonds, the way I go ! 

Adam. Out on the highroad yonder, that's your 
way. Up hill, down dale, any path you 
will! . . . 

Naomi. Homeless! . . . 

Adam. Masterless! ... 

Naomi. Naked! . . . 

Adam. Free! . . . 

Naomi. Alone! ... 

Adam. Like a wild thing! Like a young bird! 
[36] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Why, woman, I've been waiting for this 
moment. Waiting for you. Now I know 
the way I got to go. 

Naomi. What way ? 

Adam. Yonder. On the highroad. With you. 

She gazes deep into his soul before 
replying; 

Naomi. Well, you'm on that journey already. But 
there's something you forgotten. 

Adam. Forgotten . . . What.? 

Naomi. The price. 

Adam. Price what for? 

Naomi. For me. 

My sort set big store by themselves. 
Queens don't give themselves for nothing. 
Not to slaves. 

Adam. What . . . What are you asking of me? 
[37] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Naomi. My sort don't ask. Iwatch; and when the 
hour strikes . . . God help the thing as 
bars my way, when I come to claim what's 
owing me! That is, if you don't take me 
right. 

What, back to Little Boswell again, so 
soon ^ 

Adam (fiercely). Tell me what it is you want! 
I'll pay it, yes I will, whatever it is. My 
God, for you, woman, I'd give up every- 
thing I got. 

Naomi. That's what it will cost. 

Adam. Everything! Did you say every thing ? . . . 
Why then, I'll shew you what I'm flinging 
away for you! . . . 

He makes a movement towards the in- 
ner workshop; but turns half way; 

When I spoke to you just now about them 
tools I made, and all them ploughs and other 
wonders, I didn't tell you everything: I 
kept something back. Oh, I'm a slave, 
[38] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



that's true; but I'm a bastard — God's 
bastard, as holds Little Boswell together: 
the slave as makes things, do you under- 
stand? Well, perhaps I can break them, 
too! Without me, they shiver into 
pieces! . . . 

Now mark what I'm saying . . . 

His voice sinks to an awed whisper; 

I've made something alive. It can speak. 
It's the most terrible thing on earth: it 
tells the truth. Comes from God: / made 
it. 

He beckons her across mysteriously; 

It's in there. Listen. D'you hear anything? 

She lays her head to the workshop 
door, lifting her hand for silence. 

Naomi. Something muffled. Very soft. Like a lit- 
tle heart beating. 

Adam. I put it together, out of my own life. 
[39l 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



He turns a scared look upon her; 

Tell me, woman, have you ever borne a 
child? 

Her eyes widen with unspoken thought. 

Naomi. I know what you mean. 

Adam {passionately). Every pang, every agony, I 
have known it! There isn't the woman 
living as can learn me anything about it. 
My child, do you understand? None of 
your Little Boswell well-begots; but mine! 
The bastard's! My child! 

Naomi. I see! I understand! 

Adam. The blood of my heart, it was, as woke it 
from dead iron. It's not born yet. Never 
cried! No tongue, no voice! Well now, 
if I leave all this behind me . . . 

Naomi. Turn back! There's death that way! 

Adam. It's your price! Take it! It's everything 
I got! 

[40] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Naomi. They perished, everyone of them, that road ! 
Turn back again! 

Adam. I'm on the way already. It's too late. 
The stars have spoken. 

Naomi. Not so, by all the flames and burning blood- 
moons of the skies! 

Adam. Bedfellows! — You yourself first spoke it! 
That means as we belong. You, the 
gipsy woman from God knows what wild 
places of the world, and me, the Little 
Boswell bastard! . . . You've had your 
payment. Now, what have you got for 
me? 

She snatches up the butcher s knife 
as he rushes madly towards her; 

Naomi. Stand back, or I'll knife you! . . . 

The man as mates with me hereafter 
must bring me living children. I'll have 
no more dead things born of my flesh. 



Adam. What, afraid.? You — a wild thing! 
4 [41] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Naomi. Ay: it's the wildness makes afraid. Hark! 

She is standing by the open window. 

Adam. What now? What are you listening for? 

Naomi. Something down the way I come. I 
thought . . . Like the noise of a hound 
snuffing! . . . 

She draws back, sinking upon the han- 
dle of the bellows. The quickening 
coals illumine her, and die again. 

A woman appears in the big doorway. 
She has a shawl over her head. It 
is Ellen. 

Ellen. Thank God ! I've been that worrited about 
you! Where ha' you been all night? 

She comes to him with a harassed look. 
He takes her to him^ as in a daze. 

Adam. I had forgotten you. You're Little Bos- 
well, too! . . . 

[42] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 

Didn't they tell you nothing, down there? 
About me, last night? 



Ellen. I never seen a soul since you banged out of 
the house. 

Adam. Didn't you go to the jubilee? 

Ellen. I hadn't the heart, and you spoiling a good 
supper with your queer ways. Just be- 
cause a few bells begun ringing! 

He growls ominously. 

(whimpering.) I didn't see nothing. Not 
so much as a bun. Where you been? 

Adam. Sprawling drunk. Top of yon moor. Under 
the stars. 

Ellen. Yes, God knows what might come to you, 
in them blear mists, alone! 

Naomi (rising). Alone! . . . 

Ellen turns and sees her by the forge. 
[43] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Ellen. Who is the woman? What is she doing 
here ? 

Naomi. What are you doing here? Who are you, 
woman ? 

Ellen (bridling). Me? I am his wife. 

They stand looking at each other in 
the white dawn: Naomi, a kindling 
beacon^ and Ellen in gingham. 

The Sunday School clock drones the 
half-hour. 



If required, the Curtain may de- 
scend at this -point. 



end of the first act 



THE SECOND ACT 

The Scene and the Situation remain unchanged. 
The sun has not yet risen over the hills. Ellen stands 
by the anvil: Adam by the wheelbarrow; and Naomi 
by the carpenters horse. They are silent for a mo- 
ment, the women face to face. 

Naomi. If I was to tell you who I am, you wouldn't 
be any wiser. I'm not Little Boswell. 
I'm something you never had no dealings 
with in your life. 

Ellen. I've known gipsy women before now. 
They're common enough. I've watched 
their carryings on many a time from my 
parlour window. 

Naomi. You'll be watching a long while from that 
window, afore you know me. 

Ellen. I'm not so sure as I want to know you. 
[45] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Naomi. All the same, I'm here. In the same world 
with you. You can't blot me out by shut- 
ting your eyes. 

Ellen. I don't know what you mean. 

Naomi. That's what you got to watch for: what I 
mean. 

Ellen. I didn't come here to mag with you. I 
come to look for my man. 

Naomi. Maybe you'll find him. He's not far off 
yet. 

Ellen. Well, you may get some on 'em to take 
your meaning: I can't follow a single word 
you say. 

Naomi. Ay: you'm Little Boswell. 

She moves into the big doorway, a 
glowing shadow, looking up the 
moors. 

Ellen. Why, of course! I was born here! . . . 
[46] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



She joins her man hy the wheelbarrow. 

Adam, what do you think we ought to do 
about her? She's not quite all there, if you 
ask me. 

Adam. Well, in a way, she isn't. She's not just 
an ordinary woman. 

Ellen. Well, I am; and I don't like the looks of her! 

Look at her now! It's no use her wait- 
ing yonder: she won't get nothing out of 
us. I hope youve not been making a fool 
of yourself again, giving her anything! . . . 

Adam, what have you been giving her.'' 

Adam. What's the use! I might as well explain 
to a patch of turnip. You never do under- 
stand me. 

Ellen. I think I ought to! Why, we hve to- 
gether, you and me. 

Adam. Well, if it's only a matter of houses . . . 

Ellen. It's houses we have to live in! We're not 
[47] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



like some, thank God, as gad about from 
place to place without no house. 

Adam. Humph ! I said you wouldn't under- 
stand. 

Ellen. I'd understand, if you'd only talk plain. 
It's all this hinting and head-nodding gives 
me the wobbles. Your wry-necked way of 
saying things. 

Adam. It's your wry-necked way oi listening to 
them. If I was to tell you plain, you'd 
only take it for lying, or something funny 
enough for newspapers. Look here, Ellen — 
You're a Bible woman: supposing I was to 
tell you in your own lingo.'' Supposing I 
was to tell you as I've been converted? 
Knocked flat as a pancake, like Balaam, 
like Paul! What would you say.'' • 

Ellen. I'd say you were a godless liar. Like 
Ananias. 

Adam. But it's true: I am! I've seen the light! 

Glory alleloolia: praise the Lord! 

[48] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Ellen. Adam, think of your soul. You'll be struck 
or something. The light don't come to 
drunkards in their mocking. 

Adam. It come to me here in this forge, I tell you. 
Through yon doorway. Like a pillar of fire. 

He follows her swift backward glance; 

Ay, she understands. Properly speaking, 
it's what she means. 

Ellen. I'd like to know what a trapesing bonfire 
understands better than me! 

Adam. Well, there is something, if you look for it. 

Ellen. If you mean I don't dress fine, and gad 
about like a dolled up baggage . . . 

Adam. I mean — Freedom. That's something you 
never had no dealings with in your life. 

She is genuinely surprised; 

Ellen. But I am free! We're all of us free in this 
[49] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



country. Only I don't go about complain- 
ing! Thank God, there's nothing of the 
grumble-gizzard in me! Fm what you 
might call a contented woman. 

Adam. Ay, there's where your complaint comes in. 

Ellen. Complaint, indeed ! What's wrong with me .'' 

Adam. Little Boswell. 



And he grins at his little joke. 

Ellen {flaring). Yes, I can see who's been con- 
verting you! Oh, it's Hke you! You a 
respectable married man with a nice wife 
and home of your own, go off gallivanting 
with trollops as learn you to poke drunken 
fun at Little Boswell and the Bible! Then 
you come groaning about conversion! 

His joy wilts like a flower. 

Adam {mad). Groaning! Well, I'm damned! 

Ellen. Don't you swear at me: if you are! . . , 
l5o] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Foreigners coming here in their flaming 
gewgaws and flauntings, setting people agen 
Little Boswell! I don't care if she does 
hear me! Fm patriotic! I don't think we 
ought to be made feel badly about the 
place of our birth! 

Adam. Birth! What sort of birth, do you think, 
belongs to a bastard? 

Ellen. Adam, will you stop using them bad 
words! That's why people don't like you. 
Besides, they'd forget all about it, if 
you didn't keep on reminding them so 
often. 

Adam. I don't want them to forget. I want them 
to remember the sort of man Little Boswell 
lives on. 

Ellen. Little Boswell's all right, if other folk 
didn't come pushing their noses in. Med- 
dling! . . . 

I never could abide ear-rings, anyway. 
They don't seem quite respectable to 
me. 

[SI] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Adam. Ellen, did you ever take a good look at 
Little Boswell? Did you look at it just 
now, as you come up? 

Ellen. I had enough to do, worriting my inside 
out, without gaping at landscapes. Con- 
tentment! — That's the trouble with you, 
Adam : you got none. / never found noth- 
ing wrong in Little Boswell; and Heaven 
knows, I'm particular! 

Adam. Beelzebub! There'd have to be some al- 
terations, to content me! 

Ellen {exasperated). Such as what now? 



Which gives him his opportunity; 



Adam. Well, I'd build it different, to begin with. 
All them flyblown pigsties, you call your 
houses — Human beings hadn't ought to 
live in them holes : not without kicking up 
a shindy! I'd have something more solid: 
something to last: take a pride in. What 
do you say now to Walls of Marble and 
seven big Gates of Gold ? . . . 
[52] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



He breaks through her inarticulate 
gasping. 

Ay, there'd be no mistaking that, would 
there ? That would be something like a city ! 

Ellen. Every blessed drop of it's gone clean up 
into his head! 

Adam. And what's a city doing, dumped down in 
the bottom of a valley, like a rubbage heap ? 
Too low! No fresh air to it! I'd have it 
stuck up somewhere to be seen. High! 
Top of the hill yonder: that's the place for 
a city: so as the sun might rise upon the 
whiteness of them walls, and the glittering 
of them golden gates. 

Ellen. Adam, are you talking about the New 
Jerusalem .? 

Adam. I'm talking about the city yonder, waiting 
for the builders. 

They are gazing upwards^ through the 
imaginary window. 
[S3] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Ellen. If you're asking for something pretty to look 
at, there's a flag. What more do you want ^ 

Adam. Ay, any slave can set a flag flapping. It 
takes a king to build a city. 

Ellen. Yes, I suppose yon flag don't suit you now. 

Adam. Well, I was thinking maybe a little soap and 
water ... 

Ellen. There you go! Then you wonder why you 
get yourself disliked! 

Adam. Oh, I know the poison brewing for me yon- 
der! What did Little Boswell ever know 
about flags, but waving them.? It's men 
like me as honours flags. Men as '11 have 
them clean. 

Ellen. Well, if you'd only learn to tell them nicely. ; 

Adam. There's plenty to tell them nicely. My God, 
there's room in the world for one like me. 

Ellen. But you get so excited. Why won't you 
[54] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



be like other people? You don't see them 
getting excited. 

Adam. Them! A fat lot of excitement you could 
squeeze out of a load of dead mummies. 
The things they rot by have been dust 
hundreds of year. They don't know what 
day they're in: what hour. 

Do you know what's wanting in Little 
Boswell ? 

Ellen. Something funny, I'll be bound! What? 

Naomi flashes round as he. replies. 

Adam. A clock!— Yes, C-L-0-C-K, clock! Some- 
thing to wake these corpses from their 
graves. Something to resurrect them. 
Something loud and terrible, to tell them 
the time of day. 
Hark! ... 

The Sunday School clock drones the 
three-quartersy dismally. 

Do you hear it ? Yon old passing bell down 
[55] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



at the Sunday School, telHng a quarter to 
five. You beheve that, don't you? Well, 
it*s a liar: it's nine minutes to. 

What's wanted in this place, I tell you, 
is a clock. Built up high in the tower of 
the City Hall, that's where it should be: 
up yonder: among the blazing stars. No 
more of yon sort, telling lies ! A clock with 
a living heart inside it, beating time: a 
clock with a living tongue to it, clamouring 
tune: something as '11 dare to tell the 
truth. 

Ellen. Adam, have you been drinking again this 
morning? 

Adam. Yes: I am filled with new wine! Like 
them other drunkards on the Day of 
Pentecost. 

Ellen. Adam, it's blasphemy! 

Adam. Ay, it was then. It always will be, when 
you speak the truth. 



Ellen. God forgive him! 
IS6] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Emerging from the shadows, Naomi 
now stands between them. 

Naomi. Well, have you found him? 

Ellen. It's you! What have you been doing wit? 
him? He's not the same man. 

Naomi. Maybe he's bewitched, or star-struck, or 
sold himself to some spirit. 

Ellen. What are you blathering about, you heath- 
en hussy? There isn't such things nowa- 
days. 

Naomi. Well, names change, same as men. 

Ellen. I don't want to talk with you. What 
business have you meddling with other 
people's husbands, anyway? That's what 
I want to know. 

Naomi. Why, I've had people's husbands journeying 
with me, out in this wilderness, afore to-day. 

Symbolism is not Ellen's strong point. 
5 [S7] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Ellen. Well, what with her wilderness and his 
marble palaces, blessed if I know whether 
I'm on my heels or my head! Tell me, are 
you immoral or only daft? Don't you 
know this is a forge? Just an ordinary, 
messy, blacksmith's forge? 

Naomi. Ay, with crags for anvils, and great thun- 
der-bolts for hammers. Look! There's 
lightning playing about him now. 

Ellen. Take your evil eye off my man! He's 
nothing to do with you. Let him be, I tell 
you! He's mine: not yours! 

Naomi. Yours, house-fly! Watch if he's yours! .. . 

And she rivets her gaze upon him. 

Ellen. Adam, answer her. Don't let her stand 
magging there. Tell her the truth. Tell 
her as you belong to me. 

Naomi. It's too late. He passed that milestone 
hours ago. Little Boswell don't hold him 
no more. He belongs to someone else. 
[58] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Ellen. It's a lie! Who? 

Naoml Someone you never dreamed of. Him- 
self. 

Adam. Myself! . . . 

Naomi's eyes have never left him. 
Nor do they now. 

Naoml I known men belong that way, one sort or 
the other, down and down the years. 

Ellen. That's unscriptural, at any rate! Ye are 

not your own; hut bought with a price. 

She serves this up with vinegar. 

Naomi. Oh, there's price paid, sure enough. When 
men belong to themselves. 

Ellen. Yes, no-one to watch over them. I know! 

Naomi. They get watched over. 

Adam wakes as from a trance; 
[59] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Adam. What did they do ? Them men — down and 
down the years . . . 

Naomi. It was the way they took me. Sometimes 
they found me the barren mother of dead 
Idols; and they perished, breaking them. 
Sometimes they begat upon me — Living 
Children! 

Ellen. All this is so much double Dutch to me. 

Adam. It's as simple as the Book of Revelations. 

Ellen. Well, I like people to talk plain out what 
they mean. 

Adam. If she was to talk plain out what she means, 
somebody'd be getting locked up. 

Ellen. Good job, too! Herandheridols! Why, we 
got none nowadays. Only Roman Catholics. 
Thank heaven, I'm Protestant, and was 
brought up respectable to know God. 

Naomi. Then you'd best keep your eyes open. He's 
coming. Don't mistake Him. 
[60] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Ellen. Thank you, I don't want you teaching me 
about God! What should I be Hkely to 
mistake Him for? 

Naomi. Abomination maybe; or ruin. Maybe the 
devil. 

Ellen. Don't you stand jeering at me, Jezebel 
Rag-bags ! I'm a religious woman, I'd have 
you understand: I know all about God. 
His still small voice come to me when I 
was only half your age. And I wasn't no 
chicken, neither! 

Naoml His voice don't always come so still and 
small. Sometimes it come in cracking 
thunder and the clattering of hailstones. 
He's not all silence, God! He's slow: He 
takes a long time getting His breath; but 
He can shout. I known God's voice make 
windows rattle, and set the comfortable 
houses of men trembling from base to 
beam. When He's angry! When things 
gone too far! He don't leave off easy, 
when He speaks that way. Not till He 
done. 

[6i] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Ay, and strange mouths He uses, God! 
Don't always pick respectable! Any old 
jawbone '11 do for Him, so long it wags 
proper. RiflFrafF: play-folk: men in mur- 
derers' cages! I seen Him twist the mouths 
of gutter-dogs and harlots to His use: I 
seen men run stark mad, with Him buzzing 
upon their lips. Not all music, neither! 
Sometimes the roaring of wild beasts made 
drunk with slaughter: pouring through the 
fat cities: ravening! When God's angry! 
When He's out shouting! In the streets! 
In Little Boswell! 

Ellen. Adam, don't listen to her. Don*t you see.? 
She's mad! 

Adam. Well, I'm drunk. So we're a pair. 

Come, don't stand shivering that way. 
What are you afraid of.^* Don't you see 
the beauty of her.? 

Ellen. Beauty! She's the abomination out of the 
Bible! 



Adam. Why, what's wrong with her? 
[62I 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Ellen. It's her eyes. I don't like the way she's 
looking at you. Nobody ever looks like 
that in Little Boswell. I don't like the way 
she dresses herself. I don't like the colour. 
Why, it's — it's . . . 

Adam. Well, you're not a bull, are you, to mind a 
bit of colour? 

Ellen. None of us in Little Boswell ever fancied 
that colour. It's one of the things we — we 
don't do. 

Naomi. You can't escape it. It's glowing all over 
the world. Isn't it time you begun learn- 
ing what it rightly means? 

Ellen. It means the enticement of the devil. It 
means the destruction of houses. The deceiv- 
ableness of unrighteousness in them that perish. 

Naomi. It means the Living Blood, as makes all 
mankind one. 

Ellen. Adam, stir yourself! Why don't you send 
her away? 

[63] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Adam. Where to? You can't send anything like 
that away. Not when it's once in the world. 

Ellen. There's plenty of other places. What's 
Little Boswell done, to be upset Hke this.? 

Adam. Send her away! You might as well try 
and shift the burning sun. 

Ellen. We've got a policeman. What's a police- 
man for? 

Naomi. He's been tried, time and again. Hang- 
men, too. But they don't get the right 
grip somehow. Not on my sort. Even 
the grave don't seem able to hold me. 

Ellen. There must be some way, if I could only . . . 

Naomi. You can't think of anything new. It's no 
use: I'm here. You'd better face me. 

Ellen. Why are you here at all? That's what I've 
been wondering, all along? 

Naomi. Because it's the hour. 
[64] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Ellen. What hour? 

Naoml Yours. Little Boswell's. The hour when 
you got to choose. 

Ellen. Choose what.? 

Naomi. Idols or Living Children. 

Ellen looks at her curiously. 

Ellen. What do you know about children? 

Naomi. What do you? 

Ellen. Never you mind about me. Do you call 
yourself a single woman? 

Naomi. I walk alone. 

Ellen. Well, I'm a married woman; and let me 
tell you, children don't always drop down 
from heaven by choosing. 

Naomi. Ay, that's something beyond Little Boswell. 
Idols, maybe! Bibles and flags and houses. 
[65] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Even little limbs and mouths as learn to 
move and babble like yourselves. But 
nothing alive! Nothing as '11 save you in 
the hour your idols crumble. That takes 
more than Little Boswell. That's bastard's 
labour. On'y anguish and a mighty long- 
ing can kindle living children. 

Ellen {fiercely). Well, I long! 

Naomi {more fiercely). What have you borne him.? 

Ellen. Bearing isn't the only proof of love! 

Naomi. It's the on'y proof love knows. 

Ellen. Yes, I see your hinting. Because I'm child- 
less 1 You, the single woman as walks alone, 
luring into the dark by-ways ! Oh, I know 
you, wrecker of men's homes! Anyway, 
you won't lure here! Not with my man, 
Doll-of-the-ditch ! I'm his lawful married 
wife, I'd have you know: if I aw only barren! 

Naomi. By God's deep dawn and all the glimmer- 
ings of it, but Vm not barren to him! 
[661 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Ellen. What do you mean, you slut? 

Naomi. The dayspring! I have heard the living 
heart-beat of his child. 

Ellen. Adam, don't stand answerless there, like a 
stuck sign-post. Be a man! Call her a 
liar! 

Adam. There isn't no answer. I'm trying to piece 
it all out in my mind. 

Ellen. Piece what out.? 

Adam. About her and me. 

Ellen. Good gracious, you don't think I believe . . . 
How long have you known the woman .f* 

Adam. That's the point. If you'd asked me that 
question half an hour ago, I'd have said 
about ten minutes. 

Ellen. There, I know: she is a liar. 

Naomi. And if she was to ask you now? 

[67] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Adam. Why, now . . . 

I seem to have known you, one time and 
another, since the beginning of the world. 

Ellen. Oh, what's the use, with a couple of 
loonies! I'm done! 

And she plumps down on the anvil. 

Adam addresses Naomi as in a dream; 

Adam. Back in the womb of my mother, it begun. 
In yon hill. Properly speaking, yon hill 
was my mother. She bore me: she grew 
big with me: I come up out of the black 
guts of the earth, like a lump of metal. 
Deep down, burrowing in the dark, a slave : 
that's the way I was then: under the 
Romans. And up above me, in the sweet 
air, something watching for me, waiting; 
and I never knew you. But I climbed out 
into the light — You drawed me. And the 
Romans were gone. And there was lead 
in my hands. 

Next, come them others. They ground 
me back into my own soil — Mine: they 
1681 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



stole it from me. I laboured for them; 
and for wage, they bound fresh bonds upon 
me: oaths, and fears, and bits of lawyer's 
paper. In the light of day, on the good 
green earth, a shackled man, labouring, 
without no land of his own. And you come 
once more, unbeknowns to me. You come 
many times. And I fought and fell, and 
rose again like Christ; until my blood's 
huge waves engulfed them. And they were 
washed away like sand. But there were 
drills for seeding, and reapers for the har- 
vest. And I made them. 

And now, this last bondage — Little Bos- 
well. Little Boswell, barren with idols, 
waiting to be broken; and yonder, slum- 
bering, that unborn voice of iron. And you 
come to me again; like you done last night: 
up on the moor: in the dews and the star- 
light: softly like a bride. And in the dawn, 
at last I know you. 

The wine 0/ Ellen's wrath, fermented, 
now hursts the bottle; 

Ellen. No, I'm not done! Not so long as there's 
[69] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



a tongue wagging inside my God-given 
head! . . , 

What was that about last night? 

Adam. I spoke plain enough. Good Lord, you'd 
think it was something as wasn't happen- 
ing in every household in the land, to see 
her carrying on! 

Ellen. Not in my household! Not while Fm In 
it! There'll be nothing of that colour 
hanging about Number Three, Paradise 
Terrace: not so long as there's a flat-iron 
left! I'll learn your sinful soul what 
Little Boswell means by Home! 

Adam. Ellen, will you . . . 

Ellen. No, I won't! You've been talking your 
head off all the morning: now I'll talk mine. 
Oh, I may be blind and dull: I may be only 
a poor doting door - mat for trampling 
brutes of husbands to wipe their dirty boots 
on; but thank God, I am respectable! 

Adam. I'm jiggered ! You'd think to hear her . . . 
I70I 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Ellen. Think! You never stop to think! It's 
not what you think! It's other people. 
What d'you suppose all them out there are 
going to think of you ? 

She flings a large infuriated gesture 
through the imaginary window. 

Adam. Them! I'll twist them inside out with 
thinking, before I've done with them. 
Whether they understand, or no. 

Ellen. Yes, shout it through the window, do! Let 
all the world know the kind of husband you 
are! It's bad companions, that's what it 
is. Liquoring roisters talking politics and 
disrespect for happy homes, down at the 
pot-house. Them, and the wicked books 
you're always addling over! And yon 
razzle-dazzle — with her rings! 

But I'll not stand it! Don't you think 
I'm a fool, because I'm your wife. Wives 
have a lot to say for themselves, let me tell 
you. They have more at the back of them 
than you reckon. There's all Little Bos- 
well at the back of me. Little Boswell 
[71] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



won't see me put upon like this — No, not 
for twenty gipsy women! 

Adam crosses over to her angrily; 

Adam. Look here, Ellen, can't you understand a 
simple little thing like . . . 

Ellen. Don't you come nigh me! Drunken! Un- 
clean! You and your brazen trollops! 

Adam {roughly). Oh, all right: you're like the rest 
of them. It's no use trying to explain 
any little thing straightforward, in this hole! 

And he goes and sulks in the doorway. 
Ellen concentrates on Naoml 

Ellen. And as for you, gipsy, I know your mean- 
ing now! Nice lot of mystery you were 
making, weren't you? Well, I see through 
your mystery. I've heard of you before: 
read about you — Book of Revelations, sev- 
enteen-five, it was. Your sort of mystery 
come out of wicked Babylon! There's a 
word for it: a name for your sort: a name 
[72] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



too bad for a decent woman's lips! But 
it's in the Bible, right enough! . . . 

Oh, you can look at me with your eyes! 
I'm not afraid of you no longer, now I know 
you! So take care! I've got friends at 
the back of me, as '11 make short work of 
you — Scarlet Woman! 

Naomi. Take care, you! There's something at the 
back of me, also! 

And Ellen stands silent at last, as 
under a spell. 

Adam growls ironically from the door- 
way; 

Adam. Well, they're coming! Your friends, Ellen. 
I can see them down the road. 

Ellen {mechanically). My friends! Who? . . . 

Adam. Some of the black eyes and bloody] noses 
from last night's jubilee. 



Ellen wakes up with a jerk; 
l73] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Ellen. What do you know about last night's jubilee ? 

Adam. I was there. You'll be hearing by and bye. 

Ellen. You went drunk into the Sunday School! 

Adam. No, I was only mad then: I got drunk 
afterwards. Wasn't good liquor, neither. 

Howsomever, I got up steam enough to 
let off a bit of my mind. 

Ellen. Adam, you wouldn't dare! 

Adam. Why, what's the matter with my mind.? 

Ellen. What wickedness was it brought you to 
Sunday School.'* 

Adam. Why, to save souls, of course. I thought 
the Constituted Sons of Freedom would like 
to hear the word of God. So I told them. 

Ellen. He's taken the bread smack out of our 
mouths ! 

Adam. Then we'll chew grass like their other cattle. 
[74] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Ellen. So that's why their hghts were on all night! 
I thought it couldn't 'a' been all jubilee. 

An illumination comes to her; 

Adam, they've been praying for you! 

Adam. Telling God about me, eh.? Well, they'd 
have to get back at me someway. 

Ellen. Don't blaspheme, man! 

Adam. I can't help it, woman. I'm a true believer. 

A babble of voices is heard approach- 
ing, outside. 

Ellen {fearfully). Who are they? 

Adam. Three of the Sons. I'll name them for 
you. Like a wax-work show. 

And he does so, as they enter, one by one. 

Nathaniel Dank, lawyer. Little Bos- 
well's notion of constituted freedom. 
[75] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Sammy Snark, editor of the Little Boswell 
Free Press. Penny a line freedom. 

Jeremiah Jones with a black eye. Iron- 
monger: boss of the Sunday School; and 
first trombone of the MacDabble Musical 
Club — all knocked into one. Makes free 
with other people's brains. 

Each wheels round as he is named, 
facing Adam, who is left of the big 
doorway. 

Dank is a little dapper man, bald- 
headed, with a twisted lip. Snark 
is florid, with a big watch-chain 
and a squeaky voice. He stands to 
the right of Dank. Jeremiah 
Jones has a good face, thin, ascetic: 
one black eye; and a voice like an 
organ. He passes by the others, 
and stands left of the group. 

Jones. Yes, my man, I've had nothing but your 
language running in my head all night long! 

Adam. You can heave it out of your head a thou- 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



sand nights long, and they won't mistake it 
for yours, Jeremiah. 

Snark. What did I tell you! You'll get nothing 
out of him but dissertations and double 
meanings. 

Dank. Leave him to me, Snark — Just one mo- 
ment, brother Jones — I'll deal with him. 
Now sir, come over here to your own anvil, 
and be . . . 
Well, upon my word! ... 

He has turned, and sees Naomi 
there. 

The others turn like atitomata. 

Snark. Upon mine! . . . 

Jones. Mine, too! 

He feels safe, with public opinion at 
the hack of him. 



He and Snark speak t 
[77] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Both. Who is the gipsy woman? 

Dank {slowly). Yes,whois this — highly lurid female? 

Naomi. Do you want to know? I'm something you 
all heard of, many a time. On'y you 
thought I was long ago! — Shut up in your 
books and Bibles, or stamped out by police- 
men, or nailed to rot on stretching arms of 
wood. You didn't dream I was so nigh. 
Well, I'm here in your Little Boswell, at 
last. Up agen your very doors! Since 
you'm fond of naming things correct, you'd 
better call me same as she did — Scarlet 
Woman ! 

The sun rises. It breaks through the 
open and imaginary windows y flood- 
ing her with light. She is like a 
sign in blood. 

Dank. We didn't come here to talk Scripture with 
you, woman. We came here to talk . . . 

But the words wither on his twisted 
lip. 

[78] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Naomi. All right: I can watch a spell longer. Go 
on with your talking, Little Boswell! 

She settles herself upon the anvil, the 
"zvild thing" shining in her eyes. 
The sunlight burns upon her for a 
moment, and then wanes behind a 
cloud. 

The Sunday School clock drones five. 

If required, the Curtain may descend 
at this point. 



END OF THE SECOND ACT 



THE THIRD ACT 

The Scene and the Situation remain unchanged. 
The day is clear, though clouded. Adam is in the 
doorway. To the left below him, the Constituted Sons 
stand rooted as before: Editor Snark, Lawyer Dank, 
Sunday School Jones. They face the Scarlet Woman 
at the anvil. Ellen is by the carpenter s horse. 

Dank. Hm! I think I understand. 

Snark. So do I. The situation's worth a column, 
as it stands at this moment. 

Jones. - I don't agree with you. I consider she's a 
pubHc outrage, and her language disgusting. 

Snark. That's good enough for my purpose. I'm 
yellow, and I don't mind who knows it. 
Yellow and unashamed! . . . 

Keeping me up all night, listening to a 
lot of jaw! 

[80] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Jones. We've been sitting up too! I'm ready to 
drop. 

Snark. I wish you'd dropped nine hours ago. Look 
here! Most of it your cackle and his ! 

He whips out his note-hook savagely. 

Jones. Notwithstanding, I consider that woman 
no fit subject for discussion before the 
young. If you don't know your Bible, I 
do. 

Snark. I'll make it an interview with her, if I like. 
I know when I'm on a snap, without you! . . , 
Whereabouts in the Bible was that.f' 

Dank. Tut, tut, gentlemen : this is no time for 
idle prattling. 

Snark. Oh, shut it! We've had nothing else but 
prattling from you since midnight. With- 
ered old ninepin! 



Dank. How dare you defame me, sir? I am no 
[8i] 



ninepin! 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Adam. And then they talk about the anarchy of 
the lower classes! 

They all three remember him at once; 
Trio. Ah! . . . 
Dank. Which brings us to the point of our visit. 

Ellen moves up swiftly to Adam; 

Ellen. Now be careful. I'm not friends with you; 
but I don't want you a bigger fool than you 
are. 

Snark {writing). See! His own wife knows him! 

Ellen. It wasn't meant for your ears, Mr. Smarty! 

Adam. I'll be careful! I won't let a word slip 
from me as I don't mean. 

He goes down to the carpenter's horse, 
straddles it, and lights his pipe. 

Now, Sons of Freedom! Spit it out. 
[82] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 

Dank. Prisoner — I mean blacksmith: don't be 
noisy ! 

Adam. Can't help it, your honour: it's my trade. 

Dank frowns forensically upon hiniy 
and opens the case for Little Bos well. 

Dank. Now, we had better confine ourselves strict- 
ly to the point at issue. The trouble with 
proceedings of this informal kind is that the 
lay mind lacks directness. Now the point 
is . . . But be seated, gentlemen. Samuel 
Snark— No, there : on the nail-keg. Jere- 
miah Jones . . . 

Jeremiah looks round vaguely: then 
makes a line for the wheelbarrow. 

Better wheel it up here. There's nothing 
like being together; and your black eye is 
evidence. I'll take the — er — mustard- 
box. 

But Adam is troubled about the peram- 
bulations of Jeremiah; 
[83I 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Adam. Here, mind them bricks, now. Whoa! . . . 

Which -pulls him up with a bump. 

You're a good Hfter, ironmonger; but 
you'll never do for a cart-horse. 

Jones. I will not stand tamely here, taking your . . . 

And he tumbles back into the bricks. 

Adam. That's all right, trombone: take it sitting. 
You're welcome to all the wheelbarrows / 
ever made. It's when you pinch my pat- 
ents, I object. 

Jones. I protest on my word of honour as an iron- 
monger ... 

Adam. No: not with me, Jeremiah ! Or would you 
like me to hand over the proofs to Sammy? 

Dank. All ofthis is beside the point. The point is .. . 

Snark. Devil take this keg. It's bristling with 
bayonets! 

[84] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Dank {testily). You're as well off as we are! 
Look at me! Colour of your rag! 

He scrabbles the sides of the mustard- 
box^ and shews his paws. 

The point I wish to press home . . . 

Snark. Well, I'm damned if I'll sit on it. They 
are a yard long. 

He goes and squats on the handle of 
Jeremiah's barrow. It promptly 
turns over. 

Jones. Of all the lumbering elephants I ever . . . 

Snark. How the blazes was I to know the bricks 
wouldn't balance us } Do you think I go 
about carrying the avoirdupois of bricks in 
my head all day long.? Silly devil! 

Jones. Don't you say devil to me! Language like 
that! 

Snark. I'm not one of your Sunday School brats! 
[85] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



I'm a newspaper man: words mean nothing 
to me. Ass! Don't know how to sit on a 
wheelbarrow! There! . . . 

He has built himself a little throne of 
bricks. 

And now I suppose my trousers will be 
scarlet! 

He glares at Naomi as though she were 
the cause. 

Dank {icily). The point I had on the tip of my 
tongue, before this trifling digression . . . 

Snark. Well, I'm syndicated! Who started the 
digression? It was you made us all sit 
down. 

Dank {with exasperated distinctness). The point I 
had on the tip of my . . . 

Snark's snorting interruption, check- 
ed by Jones, admits a melodious 
note from Adam; 
[86] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Adam. He'll never get that point off his tongue: 
not if he uses tweezers. 

Snark. I will not be gagged. I — ^will — talk! He's 
been badgering us with his points all the 
blessed night. Do you think I'm going to 
lose my beauty sleep for nothing? Just 
because he's a lawyer, and can mess about 
as he pleases, with a row of knock-kneed 
little witnesses, he fancies he's the whole 
show. He's not! / am. I stand for the 
freedom of the press. 

Dank {frigidly). And I sir, stand for freedom too! 
Freedom of the kind they recognize in — 
courts of justice. 

Jeremiah hy this time has subdued 
his spirit to a patient smile. 

Jones. I am afraid we are all getting a little excited. 
Brethren, let us smile. I stand for the free- 
dom that makes us kind to one another. 

Snark. Except in the ironmongery, where you are 
a well-known sweater! 
[871 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



He is rewarded with a nasty saved 
look. 

Adam. Would you like to hear anything about my 
kind? 

Their unanimity claps like thunder; 

Trio. No sir! 

Adam. I thought I'd make them brothers again. 

Ellen. Hold your tongue! Can't you see they're 
mad as May-bugs? 

Snark. Don't you call me May-bug! I'm not so 
sure that you ought to be here at all. 

Ellen. It's our forge. Fine thing, when you can't 
speak a few words in your own forge! 

Snark. We've had enough words from your family 
already. If you think you are going to add 
your mite . . . 

Adam. Here, don't you get meddling with my wife! 
[88] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Snark. Who wants to meddle with your wife? But 
if she imagines for one moment . . . 

Dank. In strict law, this forge, being in point of 
fact their own ... 

Snark. I don't care a curse about that! I'd push 
my nose into the bedroom of the angel 
Gabriel for twopence! 

Ellen. Well, I'm not going to be stopped saying 
my bit: not for all the newspapers in the 
world! And that's flat, Mr. Falsetto! 

* They hurst into a quintette, all except 
Naomi bahhling together. The heav- 
ens nearly fall; but justice prevails; 

Dank. Please, please! Gentlemen, please, please, 
please! ... 

When quiet is restored, he commences; 

Every single word of this is totally beside 
the . . . 

*For quintette, see end of volume. 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Snark. Hell, I've had enough of you! If it's 
points you're after — Sit on them! . . . 

He plants him firmly on the nail-keg. 

Dank. Oh! This is assault and battery! 

Snark. I'll make it murder, if there's one more 
point from you till I've done. Now, I've 
warned you! 

The Law expostulates pathetically; 
but the Press flaps him down, and 
proceeds to spread sweetness and 
light; 

I take it, we all understand very clearly 
what we're here for. There's no need for 
any humbug about it — The truth, the 
disgusting truth: that's my motto. Os- 
tensibly, we are here to sit in calm dis- 
passionate judgment; but really to dis- 
gorge our spleen upon that blackguard 
parading as a blacksmith. He's kept me 
one whole night without a wink: I've 
scribbled myself paralytic because of him: 
t9o] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



my digestion at this moment is one intoler- 
able pang of Sunday School milk-pap and 
jubilee buns; and I tell you plainly, he'll 
get nothing but gyp from me ! 
Are you with me, Jeremiah? 

Jones. Ungrudgingly! 

Snark. You, Dank? 

Dank. Reluctantly — yes sir! 

And he tries to escape from the keg. 

Snark. No, you don't! 

And he pops him back again. 

Now, we've heard a lot from this fellow, 
one time and another, of what he is pleased 
to consider freedom. The subject seems 
to be in the air: we've been talking about 
it ourselves: we've heard of nothing else 
all night long. I don't know how it is with 
you others; but my mind is so constituted, 
that if I have to think of one thing for more 
[91] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



than five consecutive minutes, it makes my 
stomach turn. It's the way I'm built: I 
don't mind confessing it: I'm liverish. 
Well now, I'm going to put an end to this 
little show, see! I'll let this rhetorical 
blacksmith know just what Little Boswell 
means by freedom. I'll make him look at 
freedom for once iri his life with Little 
Boswell's eyes, if it costs me ten col- 
umns! 

He stops to mop his exuding brow. 

Adam. Now, he's the bloke as tells you I'm long- 
winded! 

Snark. Curse your filthy soul! 

Adam. And my language that bad I hadn't ought 
to live! 



Snark. Don't you think you're going to stop me, 
by chipping in with funny lines. I'm going 
to finish my little lecture about freedom, if 
I burst. I'll teach you to belittle that pre- 
cious heritage for which the sires of Little 
[92] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Boswell bled ! Yes sir, freedom ! Freedom 
herself, whose noblest boast it is, that, pano- 
plied in Jove's immortal thunders, she never 
hurt a fly! . . . 

Dank forgets his anguish in a hurst 
of patriotism. Jeremiah seconds 
him sepulchrally. 

Dank. Hip, hip, hooray! 

Jones. Hear, hear! 

This emboldens Snark to further 
song; 

Snark. The charter of our peculiar joys, the guard- 
ian of our faith, she has made us what we 
are! Freedom! None of your red flag 
blasphemy and sedition! But freedom as 
she is understood among her Constituted 
Sons of Little Boswell, above whose con- 
secrated heads, there proudly floats and 
flaps and flutters . . . 

However, I reserve that for the last para- 
graph. 

[93 1 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Jones. Oh, go on, Samuel! I always like that bit 
best. 

Snark. Later, Jeremiah. I won't fail you! . . . 

What do these agitators want, I ask you? 
Do they realize they are driving trade 
smack out of the country? They talk 
about freedom! What about freedom of 
contract? What about free libraries? Free 
trade? Protection, even! — Thank God, 
I'm no partisan: I can accommodate my- 
self to any change of public sentiment; and 
generally do! So long as there's backbone 
to it — financially. But all this socialism 
and syndicalism and trades-union tommy- 
rot! What about the inexorable law of sup- 
ply and demand ? What about bimetallism, 
post-impressionism, the differential calcu- 
lus? And another thing: If you divided 
out everything equally to-day, by to-morrow 
morning . . . Well, perhaps you've heard 
that argument before. 

I tell you, the real trouble with the work- 

ingman is laziness. He boozes, he beats his 

wife, he gads about in automobiles stirring 

strife and class hatred; but he won't work. 

[94] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Adam. Won't what? Where the devil d'you think 
all these things come from? Dropped out 
of the skies? 

Jones. Yes, and who finds you work? Me! Don't 
I take from you almost everything you 
make? 

Adam. You do, Jeremiah! You play the happy 
smiler with it, before you give it to the 
public; but you certainly do. 

Dank. Of course, Jones, as a mere consumer, I . . . 

Jones. You have nothing whatever to do with it, 
Dank. Political economy as it's known in 
business takes no account of the consumer. 
He makes what / find profitable; and you 
get what you can. 

Dank. . There's a fallacy there somewhere, I'm sure. 

Jones. Probably! But I'm in the trade! 

Adam. But I thought Sammy yonder said some- 
thing about supply and demand. 
[9S] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Jones. That argument is only used to squelch 
the preposterous claims of the proleta- 
rian. 

Adam. Them long words mean me, don't they? 
Well now, supposing I was to stop the 
supplies? 

Jones. It would be outrageous! You'd stagnate 
trade! 

Adam. Ungrudgingly! Would it be unconstitu- 
tional, lawyer? 

Dank. Strictly, no; but very inconsiderate! The 
consumer would certainly object. 

Adam. What does the consumer do for me? 

Jones. He and I together keep you in bread and 
butter; and I regret to add — abominable 
beer! 

Adam. Quite right there, Jerry. The liquor I 
swiped last night was thick enough to choke 
a giraffe. 

[96] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Dank. There's one thing positive. If you attempt- 
ed any such thing as you have hinted, all 
Little Boswell would unite to oppose you. 
Yes sir, and with armed force, if necessary. 

Adam. Whose armed force? 

Dank. Why ours, the constitution's, of course! 

Adam. I thought you said it wasn't unconstitu- 
tional. 

Dank. Don't you sit sophisticating about the con- 
stitution with me, sir! I'm here for that 
purpose. It's your business to blow your 
dirty bellows, and obey! 

Adam. In other words, there's a ruling class as 
runs the constitution any damned way it 
likes; and a slaving class as keeps them 
filled with vittles for doing so. And then 
you have the blasted sauce to call yourselves 
a democracy! Why, I feed all you sleek fat 
loafers! Here am I sweating out my giz- 
zard to stuff a lot of nannygoats with tripe 
and onions and all the luxuries of the land. 
[97] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Dank (angry). Let me tell you sir, the consumer 
will not for one moment brook . . . 

Jones ( shouting him down ) . I maintain it is 
the employer, the captain of industry, 
who . . . 

Adam {bellowing). What about me, the bloke as 
does the job? 

They are all three fisting the air. 

Snark. Is all this going to degenerate into a socio- 
logical discussion, or is anything going to 
be done? I want to see things moving. 
Action: that's my watchword. 

Adam. What do you want me to do ? Hit you with 
a sledge hammer? 

Snark. I want you to sit still for ten minutes if 
you can, you jumping buffalo, while I 
perorate about the flag! . . . 

Listen, Jeremiah. You'll find this use- 
ful for one of your Pleasant Sunday Enter- 
tainments for the Young. 
[98I 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Jones. By all means. You couldn't have chosen 
a more appropriate moment. 

He composes himself heatifically; and 
Snark is about to blossom, when 
Dank worms in; 

Dank. The thing I'm worrying about is: What's 
the woman doing in the place, all this time? 

Snark. Dank, do you realize you are damming the 
flow of a serious apostrophe to freedom? 

Dank. Well, but she's done nothing since her last 
cryptic remark but sit there watching us. 
I don't want to carp; but surely, that's not 
good form. If she's here for some purpose, 
let her out with it. If not, hadn't she bet- 
ter go away ? 

Snark. What do you say? Do you want to? 

Naomi. Yes. 

But she remains motionless. 

Snark. Well, are you going? 
[99l 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Naomi. No. 

Snark. What do you propose doing then? Stick 
on that anvil forever.*' 

Naomi. Maybe. 

And picking up the fallen sledge ham- 
mety she sits watching still. 

Jones. Snark, never mind that female on the anvil. 
Tell us about freedom and the flag. 

Snark. How the blue-pencil can I gather my wits 
to tell you anything with Dank about? 
I never can open my head for a few pa- 
triotic observations without some ass bray- 
ing! Silly old messer! Philandering with 
women, when there's work to be done! 



Dank. I never philandered with her! 

Snark. It '11 take me till six o'clock to-morrow 
morning, as it is — writing up last night's 
tosh: without wasting time now! Oh, bag 
your head! 

f loo] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Dank. Not until you apologize for defaming my 
character, sir! 

Snark. ril see you burning first! And what's 
more, here go twelve thousand nine hun- 
dred and forty-two words — not counting 
coughs and stammers — of the most putrid 
rot ever spluttered from a public platform! 
There! That's how much of you last night 
goes down the giddy pathway of immortal- 



ity! 



And he tears reams from his note-hook. 



Dank. Good! No more announcements in your 
yellow rag! 

Snark, My Lord, we can Hve without lawyers, so 
long as there's a theatre in the world! 

Dank. You are a squeaking puff-ball, sir! 

Snark. Oh, tut, tut! Gas-bag! 

Dank. Tut, tut, to you, sir! Scribbler! 

And he snaps his fingers at him boldly. 

[lOl] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Jones {mildly). In view of the somewhat heated 
atmosphere, perhaps the moment is oppor- 
tune for a Httle prayer. 

Dank and Snark jump on him at 
once; 

Both. No, you don't! 

Snark. We know your prayers! 

Jones {violently). Oh, all right! Pair of blatant 
fire-proof atheists, bound for the bottom- 
less abyss! 

Snark. Fire-proof, blatant, am I ? Well then, here 
goes Jeremiah! And I'll see the Constituted 
Sons with crowns of glory before I publish 
a battered semicolon! 

The note-hook lies demolished on the 
ground. They glower at one an- 
other. Adam makes himself pleas- 
ant meanwhile; 

Adam. What I want to know is: How much an 
[102] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



hour am I going to get for the use of my 
forge ? 

This provides an outlet for them; 

Trio. Silence, sir! 

Adam. Why, I haven't said more than half a dozen 
words since you come into the place. And 
then they call me a talker! 

Jones. We heard enough of you last night! 
Enough to last us a lifetime. 

He fondles his black eye, 

Adam. I . . . 

Dank. It's no use, your bursting out like that. We 
will not listen to you. 

Adam. If . . . 

Snark. There he goes again! He'll keep us chat- 
tering here a twelvemonth, if he can only 
get an audience. 

[103] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Adam. You . . . 

Trio. We — will — not — listen to you! 

Adam. You know, you'll be getting me really mad 
soon. It's about time I begun playing the 
bull again! 

Snark, Don't listen to him, lawyer. Stop your 
ears, Jeremiah. You know what he is when 
once he gets up into the pulpit. 

Adam. Listen, you constituted fatheads! 

They begin dancing dithyrambs before 
him; 

Snark. We will not! Socialist! Flouter of flags! 

Jones. Atheist! Blasphemer! Person obviously 
insincere! 

Dank. Your taste is execrable! You go about 
spreading unpalatable ideas! 

Snark. I shouldn't wonder if your uncle stole 
[104I 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



potatoes; and I suspect you yourself of 
hideous immorality. 

Jones. I don't like the cut of his hair! I don't 
like his voice! His voice nearly drove the 
MacDabble Musical Club to irrevocable 
schism! 

Snark. Hypocrite! He talks of God! 

Jones. Egotist! He says, I! 

Snark. Undesirable citizen! 

Jones. He drinks beer! Swears! Pokes fun! 

Trio. Anarchist! Grrrr! . . . 

Ellen's blood can't stand this any- 
how; 

Ellen. And who are you, I'd like to know, as can 
stand barefaced there, like a row of cocoa- 
nut shies, calling my man names? 

Jones. Sister, I'm shocked! You! . . . 
8 [ 105 1 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Ellen. Don't you sister me, Mr. Kindface Bottom- 
Note-of-a-Bassoon ! Nice thing, Little Bos- 
well's coming to, when a row of three-a- 
penny old Aunt SalHes can get up on their 
hind legs and call my man names! 

Dank. Surely you'll never take his part against us? 

Ellen. I've heard of it being done. There's a 
many women do take husbands' parts, 
poor fools! I'm respectably joined togeth- 
er in holy matrimony, I am; and I don't 
care who knows it! Even if he do talk 
through his hat. 

Snark poufices on a piece oj note- 
book; 

Snark {scribbling). You admit that, do you? 



Ellen. I don't admit nothing to you, Samuel 
Snark! I'm not afraid of your old news- 
papers, don't you believe it! Beware of 
the scribes: the same shall receive greater 
damnation. That's what the Bible says 
about you. 

[io6] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Snark. This pretentious religiosity won't wash 
with me! 

Ellen. Won't it? Well then, this not being Sun- 
day, and no need for lying, put this in your 
tub of soap-suds! — I never did like you, 
Mr. Billy-clever-goat: no, not that much! . . . 

She measures him the tip of her thumb; 

I think that part in the Little Boswell Free 
Press called "Our Woman's Column," silly! 
I believe it's written by a man. 

Snark grabs up a bit more note-book; 

Snark. I'll immortalize you for that! {Does so.) 

Ellen. You! Why, they'll only know of you be- 
cause I called you billygoat. 

Dank. My good woman, all these recrimina- 
tions . . . 

Ellen. Don't you call me a good woman! I'm no 
woman of yours, good or bad: if you do 
[1071 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



make duck's eyes at me, down chapel yon- 
der, when I got my bonnet on. Bald- 
headed old gentleman like you, as ought 
to know better! 

Dank. I never in all my life made the sHghtest 
improper . . . 

Ellen. Oh yes, you did! Me and my next-door 
neighbour watch for it. You and your sly 
ways! Oh, you're talked about, I can tell 
you! You're known all over the village 
for a lickerish old rip. 

Dank. This is libel! This calls for fire from God! 
It is indictable under the law. 

Adam. Ellen, you're a wonder! I couldn't 'a' done 
it better myself! 

She turns on him, as on the others; 

Ellen. I know what sort of a wonder I am, with- 
out no honeying from you. Oh, but I'm 
a fool, a born blind fool, taking you all so 
serious! Wasting good breath as might be 
[io8] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



cooking breakfast, on a cradleful of squab- 
bling grown up babies! 

Adam. Ellen! D'you mean to say you don't dis- 
cern in this the first deep mutterings of the 
revolution ? 

Ellen. First my grandmother! Why, I'm your 
wife, man! Little boy's big talk don't take 
me in! 

Adam {angry). Look here, Ellen! . . . 

Ellen {angrier). Don't you Ellen me! I've had 
enough to put up with from you for one 
day! I'm not friends with you. You 

know what for ! 

Adam. But . . . 

Ellen. Now, you'll only make me say things I 
hadn't ought to. You know what I am 
when I lose my head! . . . No, I won't! I'm 
going home to get the breakfast. It '11 be 
ready soon as you men done talking. And 
it's tripe and onions! 
[ 109 ] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



She sniffs impartially at all comba- 
tants, and is about to turn away, 
when she bethinks her oj a word for 
Naomi; 

As for you, you hussy, I've been watching 
you while these gowks were gassing; and I 
don't think so bad of you, as I did. I 
liked the way you give them beltinker, 
when they first come in. That bit was fine. 
And the sun rising and all! . . . Lord, if I 
could talk like you, I'd give them what for! 
. . . All the same, don't take yon looby of 
mine too serious. I've seen them caught 
by big eyes and ear-rings before now. Well, 
it don't last! . . . You'd best come down and 
get a bite before you go. 

Them and their revolutions! It's about 
time as women took hold in Little Bos- 
well! Look at 'em! Revolutions! Any 
baby boy's tin trumpet's loud enough to 
blow down yon Jericho ! Lot of men ! 

She flounces out of the forge. A mo- 
ment later, Naomi follows to the 
doorway, zvatching her down the road. 
[no] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



There is silence in Little Boswell for 
half a second. Then the vials -pour 
forth; 

Jones. There go the first-fruits of your foul teach- 
ing! 

Dank. Yes, what can you think of a man, whose 
own wife makes pubHc parade of his in- 
famy? 

Snark ifivid with cacoethes). Oh, don't you fear! 
His wife's not going to escape unscathed 
from this ! Nor his friends ! Nor his 
ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is 
his! 



Adam. Won't they, you scab, you muckworm, you 
ink-blot! Why then, I'll cast myself and 
them and her and everything I have into 
this burning fiery furnace! If we char to 
ashes! 



Trio. We — will — not . . . 



Adam. Listen, do you hear me! Last night, it was 
[III] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



only punched heads and bleeding noses. 
If I begin this time . . . 

And he snatches up the sledge hammer. 
They scuttle behind the wheelbarrow, 
each arming himself with a brick. 

Trio. Don't you come near us! 

Dank. This is nothing more nor less than intimi- 
dation ! 

Snark {top-noting it). It is sabotage or something! 

Jones {abysmally). It is the reign of terror! 

Naomi turns round, her eyes gleaming. 

Dank. Let me tell you sir, there's a law for black- 
smiths that go swinging hammers in peo- 
ple's faces! 

Snark. He's no blacksmith! He's a street orator 
in disguise. But I'll unmask him! 

Jones. He's not even a harmonious blacksmith. 

[112] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Ask any member of the MacDabble Club 
down there. 

Snark. I don't see anything so wonderful in his 
work. Tubal-Cain, now! There was a 
blacksmith for you! But he's dead. 

Jones. Blacksmith, indeed! I'm in the iron- 
mongery. I think I ought to know a 
blacksmith! 

Adam {with blasting scorn). Ironmongery! 

Snark. Gag him, somebody ! He's beginning again. 

Jones. What do you think of a blacksmith ham- 
mering spires from drain-pipes .f" 

Trio. Grrr! . . . 

Jones. What do you think of a blacksmith beat- 
ing ploughs from sword-blades, and rattling 
them in our ears hke dreadnoughts? 

Adam. Don't you blaspheme my children, iron- 



monger 



[113I 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Jones. You, a blacksmith! You don't know your 
own trade! You'll never get a pat on 
the back for ironwork! You can't make 
things ! 

Trio. He can't! He can't! The blacksmith that 
can't make things! He can't make things! 

Adam brings the sledge hammer thun- 
dering down upon the anvil, Naomi 
at the same time crying aloud for 
wild joy. Little Boswell nearly 
jumps out of its skin. 

Adam. Leave your clatter! . . . 

Now, Vm speaking, do you hear? And 
when I say I'm speaking, you know who 
I mean. If you don't by now, it's time 
you did. 

You're a liar, ironmonger! So are you 
all! I can make things! . . . What man is 
there here, as '11 dare to stand up now, 
alone — so as to be seen, so as to be heard, 
so as to be known for a swine all the rest 
of his days — and say out loud, again, as I 
can't make things? . . . 
[114] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



The Sunday School clock drones the 
quarter. He waits for every echo to 
die away. 

That sound out yonder reminds me you 
are liars. 

And he waits again for silence. 

I hear another, as tells me I can make things. 

Snark waits this time; but wriggles. 

Snark. This rhetorical claptrap won't go down with 
me. It's too much in my own line. I 
know the trick of it. 

Jones. What was he hinting at? I heard nothing. 

Snark. Oh, just one of his double meanings. That's 
what he does — symbolizes to conceal the 
atrocity of his real intention. 

Jones. Did you hear anything, Dank? 

Dank. Not so much as a tick. 
[IIS] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Adam. That's because you none of you know 
what's going on behind you. 

They all whirl round like dervishes. 

Jones. I see nothing. Do you, Dank? 

Dank {wiping his pince-nez). Not a speck. 

Adam. Why, what's yonder, staring you in the eyes .? 

Dank. What? 

Jones. Where? 

Adam. There! 

Snark. Come, out with it! Don't keep playing 
the kipper with us Hke this. 

Adam. Well, of all the blinking bats I ever ... 

And crossing to the inner workshopy 
he bangs at the door with his fist. 

What the thunder do you call this? 
[ii6] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Trio. A door. 

Adam (waggling the chain). And this? 

Trio. A chain. 

Adam. This ? 

Trio. Padlock. 

Adam. I should think so! What's the use of Sun- 
day School, if they don't learn you your 
catechism better? . . . 

Now come and stick your ears agen it. 

Dank. Stick ears! What for? 

Adam. What do you usually stick ears for? To 
listen, you chump. Now, don't keep me 
waiting all day. 

Snark. If you think I'm going to make a limpet of 
myself up against your door of doom, you're 
jolly well mistaken. 

Adam. - Wise again, Sammy ! What's going on in 
[1171 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



there is enough to make you kiss your pen 
and perish! 

Dank. My word! What can that be? 

Adam, Something as hves by law. 

Dank. Law! Perhaps then, professionally, I'm the 
fittest person to . . . 

He goes and glues his ear to the door. 

Adam {mysteriously). Well.? . . . 

Dank. Some kind of mechanism, that's all. Buz- 
zing and going plunk, plunk, plunk! . . . 
Rather — irregular, isn't it? 

Adam. No, that's you. Listen again. 
Don't that tell you anything? 

Dank. Not a word to me. 

Jones. Mechanism? Here, let me come. 

Snark's molluscan simile is admirable. 
[ii8] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



A most unusual noise. What the Mac- 
Dabble Club might report upon as — piffling. 
I don't like it. 

Adam. Oh, you will, Jeremiah, when it pays. They 
will, when the label's on. 

He beckons Snark invitingly; 

Now Sammy! 

Snark. Not me. I'm not going to play the goat 
in your little seances. 

And he squats down on a hrick. Which 
topples. 

Jones. Well, tell us what it is. 

Adam. Something as come from God through me. 

They retire hastily from the door. 

Ay, terrifjdng, isn't it ? Not ironmongery, 
Jeremiah : nothing for you to monkey with. 
Your law don't touch it, Nathaniel Dank: 
[119I 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



it's one of its own, set up in the stars. As 
for you, Sammy Snark, if you were once 
to understand this child of mine, now com- 
ing to birth . . . 

Snark. Well, I'm not here to understand, see! 
I'm here to criticize. 

Adam. You'll never manage it, Sammy. I've done 
you in the eye this time. Oh, it isn't no 
joke. I've made you something terrible. 

Snark. Yes, most of your things are. 

Adam. Right again, Sammy! When once yon 
living spirit leaves this forge, it will inherit 
the earth! Oh, I know! God don't whis- 
per in my ears for nothing. Inheritance! 
That's what it's singing to itself in yonder. 
Look out for your idols in that day, Little 
Boswell ! 

Dank. Yes, I've heard that sort of language be- 
fore. I know the dogs that use it, too. If 
you mean, you have in there some infernal 
contrivance, some machine to . . . 
[120] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Adam. I'm no murdering soldier to blow God's 
images to dust! 

Dank. Some of you are! What does your red 
flag mean — your contemptible red flag.'' 

Adam. What Christ means! Freedom! Brother- 
hood! 

Snark. Yes, we know that brotherhood! Strikes, 
class-hatred, bomb-shells! Give me Little 
Boswell, say I! 

Adam. Yes, we know that brotherhood! The 
trusts, bank panics, high prices, starvation, 
sweat shops, white slaveries, ignorance, 
millionaires, despair! Give me the brother- 
hood of your broken dogs and harlots 
rather! 

Dank. After all, the law makes no distinctions. 
We are all brothers under the law. 

Jones. We certainly are under the Gospel. 

Adam. Then why the devil don't Law and Gospel 

9 [I2l] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



get up and shew it? Instead of talking 
about it. 

Snark. Well, you talk! 

Adam. I only talk about the things I've done. 
Live things! You don't call your dead 
mumblings life, do you? So many dried- 
up gibbering yesterdays, that's all as comes 
up out of your wheezy lungs ! My child 
in yonder is the voice that speaks — To- 
day! 

Trio. Well, tell us what it is! 

Adam. I will! . . . 

No, I won't. I'll shew you. 

7 hey trot behind the wheelbarrow, bar- 
ricading themselves; as Adam, with 
much ominous rattling of chains and 
padlock, undoes and opens the door. 

There issue forth two very obvious 
musical sounds, alternating regu- 
larly. 

[122] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Adam whispers esoterically; 

Do you hear now? 

Jones. It's different, now the door's open. Why, 
it's almost — musical. 

Dank. It won't go off, will it.? 

Adam. No, it goes on — forever. 

Snark. Well, music's nothing to me: can't tell 
one note from another. That's why I hate 
having to write about it. 

Dank. Yes, there is a sort of regularity about it, 
danged if there isn't! 

Jones. And it certainly is tuneful. It might just 
catch the public . . . 
I'd like to look into it. 

Snark. You know, if you fellows are going over in 
a bunch like that, you'll be making me 
compromise! 

1 123] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Adam. That's the trouble with the truth. It pulls 
so many liars over half-way. 

Snark. Don't you fret! I'll have to see before I 
believe. What's the use compromising, if 
the wind veers again before you've raked 
in ? You have to look out for things 
like that when you're moulding public 
opinion. 

Adam. Perhaps you'd like to peep first. It's good 
for you to be ahead of the times. 

Snark. Well, seeing's beheving. Mind you, if I 
find . . . 

Half-way to the door, he stops; 

You're certain everything's — all right? 

Adam. Yon is; but I expect you'll jump a bit. 

Snark. My Lord, we're used to jumps, with you! 
Well, here goes! . . . 

He recommences his journey gingerly. 
[124] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Adam. Stop: I've a plan. I'll prove you before- 
hand. All of you whip out your watches. 

Trio. Watches! What for? 

Adam. What d'you suppose? Catch butterflies? . . . 
Come, come now! . . . 

And they obey like marionettes. 

That's better! . . . 

Now stick your eyes agen them. Ready? 

Trio. Ready. 

Adam. Now, I'll shew you something. The mo- 
ment I holler RatSy you'll all be pointing 
to twenty-five minutes past five. Are you 
all ready? 

Trio. Yes. 

Dank. Just one moment! . . . 

He puts his watch to his ear: winds 

[I2S1 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



it: rattles it; and stands at at- 
tention with the others. 

Snark. Ass! 

Adam. Now! Five twenty-five, remember! . . . 

He peers into the darkness of the work- 
shop, holding silence with his hand. 
There is a long pause, filled only hy 
a crescendo of the measured music 
within. 

Rats! 

Snark. By George, he's right! 

Jones. Who'd have thought it? 

Dank. Incredible! 

Adam {eagerly). Wasn't I right? Five twenty- 
five, eh? 



Jones. By everyone of us. 

Adam. You're sure of that? 
[126I 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Trio. Sure. 

Adam. Take your oath.? 

Trio. Solemn affidavit! 

Adam {rapturously). Well, you're all burning liars! 
It was five thirty-one. 

They seem unable to share his joy. 

Trio, Impossible! 

Snark. Why, I put mine right, down the road, just 
now. 

Dank. So did I. 

Jones. Me, too. 

Adam {delightedly). But you're wrong. Six whole 
minutes! Three hundred and sixty golden 
seconds gone to pot! 

Dank. We can't all be wrong together! Why, we 
all say the same thing! 
[127I 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Adam. It's no use, I'll die! Damn it, can't you 
see how funny you are? 

Snark. Listen, you cachinnating jackass! Can't 
you grasp the first principles of communal 
solidarity? It was five twenty-five. Little 
Boswell time. 

Adam. Well, of course, if you take Little Boswell 
for the hub of the great cart-wheel! . . . 

Jones. Well, isn't it? Why, empires are made in 



our pattern 



Adam. Lord, hsten to them! Look down on them! 
Don't they take the biscuit? 

He is of course addressing his God. 

Snark. What do you think Little Boswell's for, but 
to keep time for the rest of the world ? Let 
me tell you, what Little Boswell thinks to- 
day, they'll all think to-morrow — or be 
pulverized ! It's what we mean ! It's 
our destiny! It's what our gunboats 
mean! 

[1281 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Dank. It's the meaning of our law, our religion, 
our institutions! Above all, it's the mean- 
ing of that sacred symbol, our flag! 

Snark. Superior to all other flags! 

Jones. Our flag! Heaven's pet flag! 

Trio. The flag of Little Boswell! 

They all three take off their hats. 
Adam clambers up into the skies with 



Adam. Ha-ha-ha! Five thirty-one by everlasting 
God, the stars, and all the powers of heaven, 
and Little Boswell calls it twenty-five! 

Jones. Sacrilegious dog! What right have you to 
fix God's time? 

Adam. The right of a Fellow Workman! Look in 
yonder! That's what right! 

They scamper to the inner workshops 
like a drove of vermin. 
[129] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Trio. What is it? 

Jones. Why, it's only . . . 

Trio. A clock! 

Adam. God's clock! The clock I made! 

Snark. Do you mean to tell me, we've been wast- 
ing all this time over nothing but a damned 
clock ? 

Adam. Ay, with bells to it! There's nothing si- 
lent about my clock. It's like me! All 
hell can't stifle it! 

Now do you get my meaning? Now do 
you understand this forge and me, and yon 
glad child of thunder? 

Snark. By all the devils clamouring for copy, yes, 
I do! 

Adam. Well then, now IVe clapped your puppet 
heads together, get out of my road, Little 
Boswell! Big Boswell is waiting for its 
iron! 

[130] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Dank. You'll have to pay for this, before long. I 
tell you, the law . . . 

Jones. You'll have to pay hereafter. I tell you, 
the Gospel . . . 

Adam. Ay, handcuffs and hell! Little Boswell's 
bogies! 

Snark. Do you know what you are? Simply — 
funny! / don't think you clever! You're 
only a joke, a loud-lunged, mealy-mouthed, 
improper, mangy, shaggy-headed joke! I 
can't say more. But I will! You wait 
till tomorrow morning! I'll smash you for 
this, my man! Red's your colour, is it? 
Well, I'll shew you what yellow signifies! 
My God, I'll smash you to a pulp! 

Adam. Smash and be damned to you! My God, 
and all the morrows of everlasting are at 
the back of me! 

Snark. I'll write it up at once. I'll go now. No 
need to hear the end of this, to write 



it up! 



[31 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



He grovels on the ground^ snouting up 
scraps of note-book; and rushes out, 
squealing, scribbling, blasphemous 
with unclean devils: upon his brow, 
the brand of all the stinking beasts 
of Gadara forever. 

Dank. As for me, I'll go and look for the police- 
man. 

He does so. Jeremiah, about to fol- 
low, turns for a word. Adam fore- 
stalls him; 

Adam. No need to tell what you'll do, Jerry! 
You'll get out cheap imitations of what's 
in yonder, and sell 'em for God's Time- 
pieces. 



Jones. That's an idea. 



He modulates in the beautiful diapa- 
son of an ironmonger. And passes. 

Adam shuts the workshop door. He 
leans against it, breathing heavily. 
[132] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Adam. Well, I've done it. There goes my bread 
and butter! Beer, too! I've lost them, 
everyone ! The Constituted Sons, the Sun- 
day School, and the whole half dozen Mac- 
Dabblers and all! 

He goes to the zvheelbarrozu, and sits 
down disconsolately. 

God, how alone I am ! Well, it's worth it ! 

Naomi. Alone ? 

She comes and stands hy his side. 

Adam. I had forgotten you. Where have you 
been? 

Naomi. Behind you. Watching for the idol-dust 
to settle. 

Adam. What comes next? 

Naomi. More idols. And then — the building! 

Adam. What am I, one man alone? 
[133] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Naomi. One man. 
Adam. And you.? . . . 

There is a shadow in the big doorway. 
It is Jake. 

Jake. One moment. I have a word to say here. 

Adam turns. Naomi's eyes grow big 
with apprehension. 

Adam. Who are you.? What's your business here.? 

Jake. Ask my mate. 

He points at Naomi. The day dark- 
ens. 

The Sunday School dock drones the 
half-hour. 

If required, the Curtain may de- 
scend at this point. 

END OF THE THIRD ACT 



THE FOURTH ACT 

The Scene and the Situation remain unchanged. 
The day is overcast with clouds of blood and bronze. 
Jake is still in the big doorway. Naomi stands to 
the right of the anvil: Adam, left of the wheelbarrow. 

Naomi. I thought you were — dead. 

Jake. So did I. Maybe I am. That's what I 
come to see. 

Adam. I don't follow you. Come to see what.? 

Jake. If I'm dead. 

Adam. How do you hope to find out a thing like 
that, here? 

Jake. By my fangs. Do you know what "they 
call me.? Bloodhound. And I am. And I 
come to kennel in this smithy. 
[135] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Naomi. This is no smithy of the dead. It's where 
they forge Hving things. 

Jake. Ay, so you said last time— when I found 
you huddled in the church. You said it, 
time afore that; and afore, many times. 
Then I come; and there was nothing but 
dead bones rattling. 

Adam. How did you get here.? 

Jake. Same road as her; but in the dark. By 
scent. 

Naomi. I thought it was past all finding out, yon 
twisted way! 

Jake. I found it. I been following you ever 
since the hour I died. You remember that 
hour.'' . . . 

Naomi. I can see you now — ^your white face grin- 
ning up at the moon like a dog's. 

Jake. You was swift, I don't deny it. I alius 
found you easy quarry afore. This time, 
[136] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



you was like the wind. You cost me sum- 
mat, this time, following you. Somehow, 
the dead don't slip along so lithe as the 
living. 

Cunning as a vixen, you was — the ways 
you took. You knowed I favoured the 
swampy valleys, and the tall fat weeds of 
the winding rivers: you took the bleak 
moors and the open places, up where the 
wind blowed wide and lost among the 
clouds. But the breath of you come down 
to me in the mud-flats, and my dead nos- 
trils quivered. And I followed. 

When you come to the towns, you knowed 
I loved the lurking alleys, and the dark 
backways of houses: you took the market- 
places, and went out open, flaunting among 
the folk. But the flame of you left a trail 
behind, like a star shooting. And my dead 
eyes kindled. And I followed. 

Once I nearly touched you. Remember 
that day, and the half-blind shepherd whose 
hut you helped him build, and him thank- 
less, piping on a wood whistle.? Remember 
that rattle of stones behind you in the 
gully? It was me, falling. I was close 
10 I137I 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



upon you. Then the piping begun. And 
I was on'y a corpse. 

Last of all, I come by your warm nest 
up in yon bracken, early this morning. I 
knowed the scent of your body, I seen the 
shape — the coil of it, like a wild doe's in 
the sweet fern there. I snuffed out his 
litter. Hard by yours, it was — a ditch and 
hedge between. Then I begun shifting my 
eyes, and I seen him! Tramping down 
the moorside. I watched; and there was 
summat stealing after him — soft — like 
a shadow, like a vapour, like a flicker 
of dew -fire in the dawn. It was you. 
And you followed him through this 
door. 

Then I knowed what you was about; 
and I dragged my rotting carcass after 
you. I been buried among them holly- 
hock yonder all the morning. I know 
everything you said and done. Your words 
come bumbling down to me among the 
worms. 

Now you know how I come. By my 
nose mostly. Out of the black night. Out 
of the mouldering sod. If I'm not alive, 
[138] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



then I'm the wraith of a bloodhound! And 
I'm in this smithy. 

And he enters and stands between 
them. 

Adam. You're here by no leave of mine. 

Jake. Dead men go where they will, without no 
leave. 

Adam. Why do you keep on calling yourself dead ? 

Jake. She knows. 

Naomi. He was dead. I seen his eyeballs glaze. I 
heard him rattle. 

Jake. You left too soon. There's alius some life 
fluttering when you leave too soon. 

Naomi. It was to the heart. I seen it quiver there. 

Jake. I got no heart. 

Naomi. Then the poison-bag inside you. 

[139] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Jake. There was a bone, here: betwixt that bag 
— and you. 

Adam. What's that you're hinting? Doyoumean . . . 

Jake. Bloody murder: that's what I mean. What 
do you say to that now? . . . 

On'y — I come back again. That's my 
way too. We don't die so easy, her and me. 

And he eyes Naomi narrowly. 

Naomi {fiercely). What right, you coming back 
again? What right, corpses cumbering 
the earth, when once they'm laid? 

Jake. Wolf's right! The right of brute upon his 
mate! 

Naomi. I am no mate of yours. 

Jake. Then right of gender-wolf, whose whelps 
you borne! 

Naomi. I bore no living thing to you. What liv- 
ing thing was ever borne of hate ? 
[140] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Jake. Then blood-wolf's right upon a brood of 
bastards! 

Naomi. Ay, call them bastards! They were none 
of yours. I bore them alone, I — I myself, 
among the mountains. 

Jake. I lured them down to me in the dank val- 
leys. 

Naomi. They were the sons of heaven. I cradled 
them in the skies. 

Jake. They died unsuckled on the earth. 

Naomi. They were the falling of new stars upon the 
world. 

Jake. I douted them. 

Naomi. My firstborn! He was like the twilight! 
There was the promise of peace in his eyes. 
He went among the wild things, taming them. 

Jake. He met a wildness bigger than he knowed. 
It tore him in the forest. 
[141] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Naomi. His brother come like noonday — a child 
of joy. He leapt among the hills. He 
sang. 

Jake. An adder lurking in the river reeds mistook 
him for a wood thrush, and he sang no 
more. 

Naomi. My third — that child of sorrow . . . 

I can see him now, his arms outstretched, 
a little broken sacrifice . . . 

He was God's daybreak ! His love touch- 
ed everybody. He filled the world with 
it! . . . 

Jake. I dragged him down alongside me, a thing 
of shattered dreams, and trampled him! 

Naomi {passionately). Where have you lain him? 

Jake {savagely). In the ditchside, rotting! 

Naomi darts to the other side of 
Adam; 

Naomi. Strangle him! 

[142] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Adam. And that I will! . . . 

He rushes at Jake; hut the latter 
snatches up the sledge hammer; 

Jake. Hold off you, blacksmith! You'm not the 
first God's bastard I done dealings with. 
There's more your breed than Little Bos- 
well breed in me. Do you want to know 
what I am? Hell's bastard! Not the sort 
as makes things. The sort as breaks. I 
stand for freedom too! • 

Naomi. Ay, bloodhound freedom! The freedom as 
breathes the air of death. 

Jake. That '11 be his breathing too, afore I done 
with him. 

Naomi. Not while he bears in his heart his living 
child. 

Jake. His heart.? I crept in there myself a while 
ago. 

Adam puts his hand to his breast, in- 
voluntarily. 
[143] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Ay, don't you know as dead men walk 
through hearts as open doors? 

Adam. Ha ! The doors of my heart are closed and 
locked agen the likes of you. 

Jake. I'm the ice-blast: I go whistling through 
cracks and keyholes. Look inside you, now. 

Adam {gasping). Well — I'm looking! . . . 

Jake. There where the blood festers, and the scar- 
let mists are rising. Oh, it ain't all liv- 
ing children inside of you. There's more 
than clocks and ploughshares kindling in 
your heart! — Ay, more than golden gates 
and marble builded cities! There's me! 
There's hate! Now do you know me? 

Adam gives a great cry of anguish. 

So! I'm not dead! 

Adam. Get out! Get out of this forge! 

Jake. Not till I done my deed in it! 
[144] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



And he lets the hammer fall heavily 
upon the anvil. 

Adam. Oh, I am lost in darkness! 

Naomi. Lookup! Yonder! Big Boswell's waiting 
on the hilltop! 

Jake. Look down. Little Boswell's waiting, too! 

Naomi. Your child! Unborn! It has never cried! 

Jake. It lacks the mothering of Little Boswell! 

Adam. God! What can I do? 

Jake. Do! You ask what do? And around you 
the swinging hammers and the roaring of 
great forges ready! Ha-ha-ha! God's 
blacksmith, God's bastard blacksmith, 
metal in his hand! — And he don't know 
what to do, when Little Boswell spits upon 
him! 

Adam. I do what I must do. I have only learned 
to make things. 

[145] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Jake. Ay, jangle your chains — slave! 

Adam leaps upon him; hut he is quell- 
ed by one clutch of those fleshless 
fingers at his throat. 

Nay, not with kings! 

Adam. Kings! ... 

And he reels hack, stunned. 

Jake. Kings, I said. 

Adam {stupefied). Why, what would kings do? 

Jake. I'll tell you what I'd do. If Little Bos- 
well dealt with me as Little Boswell dealt 
with you: dead as I am, this arm of mine 
should rise out of the rot and slumber; and 
forging burning bolts of iron, I'd smash 
them all to hell! That's if / was a black- 
smith! That's if / had Little Boswell in 
the hollow of my hand. I'd shew them 
what I meant by freedom ! Now you know 
the sort of bastard, I am. 
[146 J 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Adam stands agonizing for a moment; 

Adam. But my child! The thing I made for them 
with my own hands! 

Jake. Ay, they shewn their cherishing of that! 

Adam. Maybe, their children; or their children's 
children . . . Someday . . . 

Jake. Little Boswell breed don't die out! 

Adam. But it's alive! One of God's own images! 
Someday they must see. This isn't no 
dead idol as I've put together. 

Jake. They'll make it one, if it lasts long enough. 

Adam. Maybe, some blacksmith, some man like 
me, centuries to come . . . Someone to get 
up and tell them . . . 

Jake. Ay, they'll learn him! 

Adam. It can't be! Not this! This as I've made! 
Why, I've carried it inside me, like a mother. 
[147] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Jake. There's been other mothers known their 
labour come to naught. 

Adam. There's my love upon it. My own blood 
pours through it. I've been past death and 
agonies of hell for yon. It must live! 

Jake. What! For Little Boswell to keep time by.? 

Adam. It will tell them the truth! 

Jake. For them to turn to lies! 

Adam. What are you urging me.? What do you 
want me to do? 

Jake. Pay back Little Boswell! Blot them out. 
Leave them wrecked in blindness! 

Adam. How can I.? . . . 

Jake. Yon child of yourn . . . 

Adam. Well? . . . 

Jake. It's struggling! It's nearly born! . . . 
[148] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Adam. Well? . . . 

Jake. One little hour, and it will be free! 

Adam. Well.? . . . 

Jake. Tear it to pieces! 

Adam. Tear my . . . 

The Sunday School clock drones the 
three-quarters. The reminder stirs 
like poison in the heart of Adam. 
He rushes to the imaginary window^ 
lifting clenched fists towards the 
sound. For a moment^ Jake pos- 
sesses him utterly. 

Adulterous liars! Devil worshippers! 
Blasphemers! 

Naomi. Don't listen to him! Stop your ears! 
You'm lost, if you Hsten to him! Lost, 
like all the others. 



She now stands separating them. 
[149] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Adam {dazed). Others! What others? . . . 

Jake. Her others. You'm not the first. I'm 
first. But there was others had hankerings 
after her, afore you come — many of them. 
You'm on'y the last, as stands betwixt my 
mate and me. 

Adam. Well, what became of them? 

Jake. They'm gone. Blown to the winds like 
road dust. Like the scatterings of chafF. 
They and their bastards with them. 

Adam. What were they to her? Them others? 

Jake. She bore them what they brought to bear. 

Adam. She? . . . 

Jake. Ay, my mate. 

Adam looks at him searchingly. Then 
at Naomi. He is labouring with 
some growing remembrance in his 
mind. 

[150] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Adam. That's what it meant then! Down in them 
Roman lead mines. Ay, and afterwards, up 
on the good green earth. And yet again, 
last night, on the moor! . . . 

And now I know you, who you are. 
We've met before, you and me, time and 
time again, down the years; and each time 
you worsted me. A shadow, that's what 
•I thought it was, darkening men's minds, 
deahng out death and bloodshed, turning 
living deeds to idols. It was you! 

Jake. Ah! ... 

Adam. Others, were there? Others as knew her 
before I come! Hell's bloodhound! Black 
bastard, as I've wrestled with in all 
my hundred lives! There were no oth- 
ers! There was only one! And it was 
me! 

Jake. So be it! Wipe away them others! There's 
still left you and me. 

Adam. That's so! And by Christ's glory, I'm 
alive! 

[iSi] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Jake. So were you afore. Until you meddled 
with my mate. 

Adam. Your mate, is she.? She! This wild thing 
of the skies and watching stars, your mate! 
Not while the blood of yonder hill goes 
burning through my veins! I'll tear her 
from you, and make her mine! 

Jake. How — yours? 

Adam. Mine for mating! Mine to breed by! 
Mine for the peopling of a new world — of 
living children. Now you know the sort 
of bastard I am! 

They pause, looking at each other 
across Naomi. 

Jake. So then, once again! . . . 

You understand, blacksmith? This is 
death grip betwixt you and me. 

Adam. I've passed this way before — in bhnd- 
ing darkness. This time, I come with 
flames. 

[iS2l 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Jake. The fight's for her, mind you. My mate. 

Adam. For her, that's true! But mine! 

Naomi. One moment. Look into my eyes, you, 
blacksmith. What do you see written there ? 

Adam. I see a kind of wildness. Like a moor bird, 
nestless. 

Naomi. Why then, yours? What if I'm still my 
own? 

Adam. I'll make you mine. 

Naomi. You? . . . 

Adam. Ay, for my mate. 

Naomi. You? . . . 

Adam. I'll go along with you, into your wild places. 
Wandering now here, now there, under the 
open sky. 

Naomi. Ay, like the wind. 
11 [153] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Something in her tone makes him 
pause; 

Adam. Why, what do you ask? 

Naomi. I ask a resting-place. Somewhere sure to 
abide in. 

Adam. I'll build one for you. Far away! Up on 
the bleak moors, you and me alone. 

Naomi. You.'* ... 

Adam. A}^, me. I said me. 

Naomi. What are you? 

He is dumb. 

I am a queen. What are you? 

He lowers his head. 

And I mate with none but kings. 

He lifts his head with sudden passion; 
[154] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Adam. Not with yon king! 

Naomi turns a long look upon Jake; 

Naomi {calmly). Nay, not with yon king. 

Jake. All the same, she's none of yourn — slave! 
There'll be no slave's bastards peopling 
the world by her! No slave's drab, she! 
A queen! 

Adam {slowly). Ay, the word goes home! It's 
what I am. A slave! 

But his eyes are kindling with some 
new big birth of thought. 

Jake. And I'm a king! If not hers, at least fit 
mate for her! Now, where's your boast- 
ing, blacksmith.? 

Adam. I'm trying to frame it right. A slave can't 
fashion boasts so swift as kings. It's my 
dull wit, the mud I'm made of! Ay, the 
dirt, the strangling clods out of which I 
come! That and the galling chains! 
[155] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Jake. Ay, clank them! Let them bite well into 
the fierce flesh! 

Adam. Ay, they bite deep enough! 

Jake. And the ancient rust of them ! Like canker, 
festering! 

Adam. Ah! Slave! Slave, am L? . . . 

Naomi. Look, they'm breaking! The iron pulls 
like plaited straw! The links are severing, 
one by one! 

Jake. Ay, but the blood gushing! Slave's blood! 
No blood of kings to breed by! 

Adam. Ay, no blood of kings! No royal poison 
creeping through the veins, to turn my 
heart to stone! But the blood from the 
lead mines yonder: the blood as toiled and 
suffered and bore up metal out of the deep 
hills: the blood as foamed with a thousand 
dreams and doings, taming the earth and the 
wildness of it! My blood! Blacksmith's 
blood! The blood of a slave! And as a 
[156] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



slave, I claim her! Queen or no queen, 
she shall breed by what I am! 

Naomi {exultantly). Ay, but you don't know what 
you are! 

Jake. And never shall, so long as this dead hand 
of mine . . . 

Naomi. Ay, but by the golden sun, he shall! 

Adam. A slave, I am! No more freedom! Look, 
I cast it from me! Henceforward, I wear 
new chains! Not Little Boswell's! My 
own! Of my own making! 

Jake. Then all your talk of freedom . . . 

Adam. I am her slave no longer! She is mine, to 
deal with as I will. 

Jake. Where shall you deal with her.? Faraway: 
up on the bleak moors, you and her alone.? 

Adam. Not so. Down here. In the thick and the 
bustle of it. In Little Boswell. 
[157] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Jake. Ha! Little Boswell will have a word to 
say to that. 

Adam. They will have no word. It's my word 
only, now. 

Jake. Ay, and win yourself the Little Boswell 
hate, as knows no peace. 

Adam. I am past their hate. There's none of them 
can hurt my heart any longer. This is peace. 

Jake. Well, you've paid for it. 

Adam. I have paid. 

Jake. There is yet more payment to come. 

Adam. I am rich. I will meet it. 

Jake. Last night's jubilee won't be in it, with the 
fun ahead of you. 

Adam. The fun ahead of me belongs to God. 

Jake. It's Little Boswell's part in itl'mthinkingof. 

[158] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Adam. Little Boswell! I have a way to beggar 
them forever. 

Jake. I'd Hke to hear it. 

Adam. It's a slave's job, too! Ladders and cranes 
and great wheelbarrows ! Marble blocks and 
gleaming golden bars! Ay, and mortar! And 
a deal of iron! And only me as can do it! 

Jake. What.? 

Adam. Build their city. 

He points up, through the imaginary 
window. 

Jake. Ay, a barren city! A city of dreams! A 
city with none to live in it. 

Adam. Then, like God, I'll make them. 

Jake {savagely). Then you'll make them bas- 
tards, by a wanton! 

Adam. Ay, by one in scarlet. 

[159] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Jake turns to Naomi; 

Jake. Do you hear this, you? Have you no 
answer, when this slave outfaces you? 

Naomi. There is no answer. I'm my own no 
longer. 

Jake. What, you, the queen as on'y mates with 
kings! 

Naomi. I have found one. 

Adam {wonderingly) . Found — who? 

Naomi. The king I watched for. 

They are apart, gazing at one an- 
other. 

Jake has been standing all this time, 
rigid, motionless, grasping the han- 
dle of the hammer, as when first it 
fell upon the anvil. He now lets 
it drop. It clatters from his nerve- 
less fingers to the ground. 
[i6o] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Jake. So! . . . It was death. 

They pay no heed to him. Their eyes 
are bent upon each other. 

Maybe, some lingering spark . . . Some 
mummied bone, unwithering . . . 

Naomi and Adam are wandering, high 
up on the moor. 

Naomi. I waited through the long night, watch- 
ing! 

Adam. I lay in darkness, and I never knew. 

Naomi. I come like a wild thing to the lair of you; 
and nestled there. 

Adam. I dreamed of stars, and woke again and 
lost you. 

Naomi. I come in the morning before the break of 
dawn. 

Adam. And the dawn broke; and it's — ^Today! 
[i6i] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Jake. Harkee to this voice, you two. It's from 
the grave. I am gone from you. But 
beware! One shp, one halting step here- 
after; and I am back again. My sort 
don't fall and rot away to dust and vapour, 
evermore! . . . 

His voice is like a far-off stirring of 
wind among dry leaves^ down in the 
valleys. They have never heard him. 

Adam. Today, and the good sweat and toil of it! 

Naomi. And beyond today — Tomorrow! 

The sun hursts through the clouds and 
falls upon them. Jake watches for 
a moment.) his eyelids faltering; and 
he slips noiselessly away. 

The Sunday School clock drones six. 

If required, the Curtain may de- 
scend at this point. 

END OF THE FOURTH ACT 



THE FIFTH ACT 

The Scene and the Situation remain unchanged. 
The day is golden with sunlight. Naomi and Adam 
are alone in the forge. 

Adam. And now for the real jubilee to begin. I 
needn'twait for tomorrow morning. There's 
plenty for me to go on with, out there, just 
now. 

A sound comes hack at him, through 
the imaginary window. 

There! Do you hear them? 

Naomi. Ay, they're beginning to wake up. Some 
on 'em have been wriggling since cock-crow. 

Adam. Well, I'm ready for them. I'm ready for 
the worst as Little Boswell's heart can 
offer me. 

[163] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Naomi. What if it's the best? 

Adam. How best.? 

Naomi. Why, what if it's Big Boswell's heart you 
hear awaking yonder? 

Adam. God! I'm ready for that, too! 

Naomi. Beheve it! Don't you hear the sound of it 
thickening through the air? 

Adam. I — don't — know! I've told these people 
things before. Many times. Why, it was 
me, six years ago, as called them here, and 
told them of the brotherhood of man. 

Naomi. Well, didn't they listen to you, that time? 

Adam. Ay, at first, while I was new to them. Then 
they turned again to idols; and twisted my 
plain meaning into tracts for Sunday School. 
I up and spoke again, and told them of the 
lies and hate they lived by. Shewed them 
the death and bitterness of it! — Well, they 
soon let me know about that. I preached 
[164] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



their own God's gospel to them, and brought 
Christ's Murder to their blood-stained doors. 
They spat upon me. I told them of the 
lusts as fed their brothels; and every red- 
eyed wolf among them said I lied. Even 
when they didn't speak, I knew the mean- 
ing of their leering silence. This time, it's 
freedom — the thing they're always brag- 
ging of; and as long as I'm in the world, 
they'll have it dinned into their heads, 
as freedom isn't all a matter of flags and 
soldiers' pop-guns. It's something they've 
got to sweat for. Don't you think they're 
going to get off easy, once I see them stuck 
in front of me ! 

Oh, I make them laugh, all right. They 
want to be amused. Lot of jaded johnnies! 
Everyone of them thinking I mean his next- 
door neighbour; and I mean just him! 

Naomi. And what about yourself.'' 

He turns upon her with delighted sur- 
prise; 

Adam. Now, you're the first person as ever had 
[165] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



the gumption to tax me that way. Why, 
you might be my wife! . . . 

Oh, but you're right, all right. A man 
don't carry on the style I do, unless he felt 
the bite of all these things inside himself. 
Mind you, I wouldn't have them know 
that! . . . 

All the same, I'm different. Mine's the 
case of the repentant sinner, if I do seem 
to say : Thank God, I'm not as other men ! 
Oh, I'm religious, right enough! Even 
Snark squeaks that about me. Calls me 
Reverend ! 

Naomi. You're talking about yourself a long time, 
master.'' 



Adam. Well, haven't I the right to talk about my- 
self? Look what I've done! I'd like to 
see any of them out there get up and dare 
to do what I've been doing here to-day. 
They'd soon learn about it! You ought to 
know better than anybody! Why, woman 
— and mind you, I'm dead in earnest now — 
it's been you, watching over me, caring for 
me, suffering with me, while these putrid 
[i66] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



curs kicked up their mud at me, as made me 
the mighty thing I am! Oh, you know! 
And I know too! Do you think I mind the 
hatred of the whole bhnd world of them, so 
long as I have you? 

Naomi. You have me, beyond this whole blind world. 

Adam. What does Little Boswell know of the 
things as you and me know? They can't 
begin to dream! 

Naomi. Ay, it isn't easy, holding up high banners 
in the air! 

Adam. We have wrought together, you and me, 
deep down in the earth! In the unknown! 
In the hidden places! 

Naomi. We have torn God's secrets from the cloud- 
ed heavens! 

Adam. We have builded! We have put together! 
We have borne living children! 

Naomi. And when the world has flouted us, we have 

poured upon them untold riches! 

[167I 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Adam. They do not know the weeping and the 
labour! 

Naomi. They do not know the laughter and the 
sweetness ! 

Adam. The sorrows of it! 

Naomi. The glories of it! 

Adam. The downfalls! 

Naomi. The upliftings! The flames of the sky are 
burning, and they do not see them! 

Adam. The winds of the earth are singing, and 
they never hear them! 

Naomi. But they shall! The day is coming! It is 
come! 

Adam. Nay, not for them! Not Little Boswell! 
Their eyes are bound : their ears are stopped 
with clay! 

Naomi. Nay, but Big Boswell! They shall wake, 
and be alive, and understand forever! . . . 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Hark! I can hear them now! 

She rushes to the imaginary win- 
dow; 

Look! They are awake! They are up 
and buzzing! 

Adam. Where? . . . 

And he joins her at the window. 

Naomi. Out yonder! They are gathered in the 
open place below there! 

Adam. Why, it's swarming with them! There 
must be hundreds! 

Naomi. Ay, and beyond them, thousands traiHng 
along the valley! 

Adam. Look! Their eyes are bent this way! It's 
about me! See! They're bound for the 
forge. Well, I'm ready for them! 

He seizes the sledge hammer. 
12 [ 169 ] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Naomi. Speak to them, through the window! 
Adam. What shall I tell them? 

Naomi. Tell them what you've always told them. 
Tell them the truth. 

Adam. God help me now, I will! 

And the imaginary zvindozv is flung as 
it were wide open. Adam addresses 
the crowd outside; 

Well, I'm here. In the same old place. 
Doing the same old job. Forging iron for 
you. You needn't look for tin nor paste 
nor putty in this smithy! Iron! That's 
my trade. That's why I'm here. And you 
won't find me skulking away. 

What I'd like to know is: What are you 
here for.? What are yowl Are you Little 
Boswell come with stones to kill one more 
of God's high voices ? . . . 

Or are you Big Boswell come with guts 
of living thunder.? . . . 
[170] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



He considers them a moment^ without 
speaking. 

Look at me, you ! Big Boswell and Little 
Boswell together. I'm your blacksmith! 
I'm the man as works for you. And I'll 
talk about my work first. 

I'm the maker of it: not you. And I'll 
make, my way: the way God shewed me. 
It's ancient way enough, if you knew the 
signs. There's nothing novel in my mak- 
ing: it's as old as the hills — and as lasting. 
But that's our secret only — the Workers 
as Know How! Not ironmongers! Not 
penny-a-lines ! Not little pups from Sun- 
day School! All the same, it's yours — To 
enjoy, if you've not forgotten how! It's 
no longer mine, the moment I got it done. 
I make for you! What are you going to 
give me back again.? Dirt and swineyard 
ofFal? Or my wages? 

He pauses to take breath. 

And next, I'll talk about myself. Yes, 
that's been Little Boswell's pet joke, six 
[171] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



years now: it's getting stale. That and 
the blasphemy wheeze. Well, here's a bit 
of both for you. When I say myself — as 
I sometimes do — I'm speaking of Someone 
a long sight bigger than me here. I mean 
God ! Yes, I thought that 'd get some on 
you! ... If you know your Bibles, if you 
know the meaning of your own religions, 
Jew or Christian, you'll understand. If 
you don't, I might be Pope of Rome and 
Moses on the Mountain all in one, and you'd 
never tumble. Don't you see I'm trying 
to save your damned souls? Shewing the 
bottom truth of what's inside yourselves! 
When I say Me most, I mean You more! 
Though I'm jiggered if some of you de- 
serve it! . . . 

He -pauses again. 

And last of all, I'll tell you of this thing 
being born to-day. It's a living child, re- 
member. The labours are all over: no 
more anguish : another moment, and it will 
be free. But I see a Shadow waiting for 
it: something dead and mouldering in the 
[172] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



earth, rotten, green with envy, yellow with 
decay, pretending to be ahve! Something 
pledged to strangle it! Something as come 
here for just that purpose! Rat-Hke, 
squeaking! Oh, it's poisonous, powerful — 
I don't deny it! But I alone — one man 
alone — this day have dared to grapple 
with it! People of Big Boswell, I made it 
for love of you ! Shall they strangle it ? 

The People of Big Boszvell answer. 

Then I am alone no longer! If it were 
only ten of us, the city has begun. 

Naomi. Hark! 

The Sunday School clock drones the 
quarter. 

Adam. What does yon mean now? It's dead and 
done for! 

Naomi. It means my work is over. And I must 
wander on again. 

Adam. What, leave me now.? 
[173] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



Naomi. I shall be with you always. 

Adam. Where are you going? What are you 
going to do? 

Naomi. To strike the true hour. All over the world. 

Adam. Oh, Scarlet Woman! . . . 

Naomi. Blacksmith! . . . 

It's been a long journey, you and me to- 
gether, today, mate. 

Adam. Journey? . . . 

Naomi. Ay, a man may move a lot in one short 
hour, and him never shifting a foot. 
And that's what you done to-day. 

They are widening apart slowly, their 
eyes fixed on each other. 

Adam. I have known you all my days, Scarlet 
Woman; and now you're mine. 

Naomi. You shall know me when the last star is 
[174] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



shivered into dust. And I shall be yours, 
blacksmith. 

Adam. Oh, you are fading from me! What are 
you? Only a dream; or something real? 

Naomi. Nay, I'm real enough, for them as want 
me! 

Adam. And yet . . . 

Why, I've never so much as touched you! 
You've been here . . . and there . . . and 
moving about like flame, like music; and 
yet . . . 

I've never even kissed you on the lips. 

Naomi. Haven't you? Why, I've borne you, your 
child. Watch it, blacksmith. 
Good luck, mate. 

She fastens her eyes upon him for the 
last timey and is gone. 

Adam. My child! It has never cried yet! But it 
shall! It's coming to life! She shall hear 
it! It shall echo in her heart and comfort 
[175I 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



her forever! They shall all hear it! Ay, 
even Little Boswell, this time! They shall 
hear it through the world! 

He goes to the inner workshop and 
flings open the door; 

Let your lungs free, people of Big Bos- 
well! Not for me! It's not my child, 
merely! It is the child of God! 

He rushes into the workshop. A mo- 
ment later, there comes crying out 
of it a great chord of hells. 

The Curtain descends. 



END OF THE FIFTH ACT 



«26 



THE QUINTETTE 

(See page 89) 

The follozving cacophonies^ well rendered, it is 
hoped may prove pleasing to the futurist ear; 

Snark {ist soprano). I'll editorialize you for that 
remark! Yes, I will! I'll make scare- 
heads of you! I'll leave you without a 
shred of honour to your name! Oh, I'll 
not be silent about it! I'll be an eagle, 
and scream you in the sun! . . . 

Ellen {2nd soprano). Don't you think you're 
going to top -note me out of my bad 
opinion of you! Not if I know it! I can 
scream as loud as you, and will! You, a 
man! Why, you're only a bad slate- 
pencil, squeaking like a whistle! 



Dank {tenor e buffo). This will never do! It is 
[177] 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



contrary to all tradition! It is not done! 
Please, please! Gentlemen, please, please, 
please! . . . 

Adam {baritone). Under the spreading chestnut 
tree, 
The village smithy stands: 

The smith, a mighty man is he, 
With large and sinewy hands. 

He sings ity accompanying himself on 
an old tin kettle. 

Jones (basso-prof ondo). Is this to be last night's 
pandemonium all over again, or is it not 
to be? To be or not to be: that is the 
question! 



They continue ad lib., until Dank 
wins out. 



THE END 












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